1231 
3 

C56 






opy 1 


MHIXTCO. 




■ ITS REVOLUTIONS: 




1 ARE THEY EVIDENCES OF RETROGRESSION 




OR OF PROGRESS? 




I 

A • 

HISTOEICAL AND POLITICAL REVIEW, 




GEORGE E. CHURCH. 




REVISED FEOM THE NEW YORK HERALD OF i¥AY 2.5TH, 1866. 




NEW YORK: 




BAKER cfe.GODWIISr, PRINTERS, 




rniNTI\G-HOUSE SQUARE. 




1866. 






J -:-..-i^v_.,,. 


¥ 


1 



MEXICO. 



ITS REVOLUTIONS: 

ARE THEY EVIDENCES OF RETROGRESSION 
OR OF PROGRESS ? 



HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL REVIEW, 



GEORGE E. CHU^Oaiii^ 




EEYISED FROM THE NEW YORK HERALD OF MAY 25TH, 1866. 



NEW YORK: 

BAKER <fe GODWIN, PRINTERS, 

PRINTING-HOUSE SQUARE. 

1866. 






■^^■^ NuMEKOUS applications for a pamphlet edition of my 
" Historical Review of Mexico" have induced me to revise that 
which appeared in the New York Herald of May 
25th, 1866. 

For a clearer understanding of the subject, many details 
have been introduced, appertaining to the period from the 
" Revolution of Ayutla " to the French invasion; for it was 
during that time, that the great principles for which the coun- 
try had been battling were raising their heads above the 
revolutionary surges which had so long deluged the land. A 
supplement has also been added, containing some of the later 
political developments relative to Mexico. 

GEORGE E. CHURCH. 
Providence, R. I., 
July UK, 1866. 



7,^ /• r)d 



MEXICO : 

of progress ? 
A HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL REVIEW. 



PAET I. 



Geographical Position of Mexico — Hee Commeecial Advan- 
tages — The Trade Currents of the World — Climate, 
Soil, etc. — Her Revolutions Elements of Progress — 
Era of the Spanish Conquest — Occupation of the New 
World — Government of the Viceroys — Laws of the 
Indies — Education. 

From the peculiar and commanding geographical position 
of Mexico, there is, perhaps, no country in the world destined 
to play a more important role in the history of mankind. Sit- 
uated midway between supply and demand, she stands like a 
barrier, interrupting and claiming tribute from modern Euro- 
pean civilization on the east and ancient Asiatic civilization on 
the west. At her western doors she may bathe her commercial 
enterprise in the products of Japan, China, India, Australia, 
and all the islands of the Pacific. To the eastward, the vast 
wave of progressive civilization is fast rolling onward towards 
her shore, bearing with it the demands for ceaseless activity, 
and the germs of national development. It is upon her terri- 
tory that the wave of empire, which has for so many centuries 
been sweeping westward, reaches the confines of that great sea 



from whose western shore it parted. Northward she enjoys the 
immediate contact of the wonderful national progress of the 
great republic, while to the southward, within easy reach, lie 
the trade and wealth of South America. There is not a com- 
mercial country in the world which she cannot reach by easy 
water communication and in almost a straight line. 

With such a magnificent geographical position, there should 
spring up great cities and commercial centers upon her terri- 
tory ; for, as commerce advances, it will place her, with reference 
to the modern trade of the world, in nearly the same position 
that Syria, Mesopotamia, and the whole of "Western Persia 
occupied to its ancient trade. It was the East Indian and 
European trade currents, flowing over these countries, which 
gave birth to the cities of Selucia, Palmyra, Sidon, and her 
colony. Tyre. The same causes, later, forced into notice Byzan- 
tium and Alexandria, made Pome and Carthage centres of dis- 
tribution for East Indian products, and gave Venice wealth and 
power to turn back the Ottoman sword from Europe. 

No better illustration of the importance of occupying a 
central position, with reference to the great trade currents, can 
be selected than by the comparison of Eui'ope in the latter part 
of the fifteenth with the beginning of the sixteenth century. 
In 1498 her whole Indian commerce flowed westward from its 
Asiatic sources through the old laborious channels to the eastern 
shore of the Mediterranean, where the merchants of Genoa and 
Venice became its principal European distributors. Every 
Mediterranean port resounded to the hum of commercial life. 
Suddenly the tide was turned ; Vasco de Grama, retracing the 
track niade by Pharaoh ISTecho's Phoenician ships twenty 
centuries before, rolled away the barriers to great com- 
mercial development, and ordered Europe henceforth to look to 
the Atlantic coast for centers of East Indian supply. The whole 
Atlantic seaboard immediately sprang to meet the demands 
made upon it, and to reap the civilizing influences caused by an 
intense forcing of mental activity to supply the wants of rival 
commercial interests, and gather the new harvest laid at the 
feet of Western Europe, ft was like a desert simoon to the 
Mediterranean ports ; the great Nile of Asiatic commerce, 
which had annually borne in its tide the segregated wealth of 
the Indies, had changed its course, and now poured its wealth 
around the Cape of Good Hope and through the dreaded portals 
of Hercules. The Mediterranean ports which had throve upon 
its bounty suddenly sunk into mere local importance ; or, no 
longer imbibing its fructifying power, became, like Venice, a 
mournful wreck of their former splendor. The world now 
breathed westward. Wafted in its breath, the great trade cur- 



rents are now fast settling their foci upon the northern half of 
the New World, and point unerringly to a culmination in Mex- 
ico ; for, as they have advanced westward, constantly neai*ing 
the great source of supply, and constantly having more demand 
to the east of them, the cities with which they have been preg- 
nant have risen to opulence and grandeur in proportion to their 
ability to intercept and distribute the waves of wealth flowing 
past them. 

Mexico, so favorably situated, must then have at her com- 
mand more elements than any other country ever before pos- 
sessed for the building up of a mighty people. Under the 
colonial rule of Spain, the advantages which she possessed for a 
direct trade with the Indies were not overlooked, and her splen- 
did harbor of Acapulco, upon the western coast, became the 
great center of East India commerce, not only for all the Span- 
ish-American possessions, but even for the mother country, who 
found it to her advantage to ship direct to the Indies, from the 
Mexican mines,that silver which the Asiatics so largely demand 
in exchange for their products ; while, from Acapulco, many of 
the East India goods, crossing the coimtry by the great national 
road to Yera Cruz, were reshipped to supply the demand in old 
Spain. 

Added to the blessings of geographical position, there is, 
internally, no country in the world which surpasses Mexico in 
the natural blessings of climate, fertile soil, and opportunities 
for the development of agricultural, pastoral, and mineral 
wealth. While under a united people her military position 
would be almost invulnerable. Thus preeminent among the 
countries of the world, she occupies a superior j)osition for 
great national development, homogeneousness, and intense con- 
centration of the elements of stability. 

In making this statement we are not unmindful of the refined 
horrors entailed upon her by Spanish misrule, nor its zealous 
cultivation into still more bitter fruit by the Mexican clergy : it 
is this which has prevented her from making use of those mag- 
nificent advantages which Heaven has conferred upon her. 
Mexico has been too much derided by the world for her misfor- 
ttines. Our countrymen are too fond of having her painted 
writhing under the miseries from which for a half century she 
has been trying to shake herself free. We have been too willing 
to compare her woes with the happiness of our own country, 
which was born under different circumstances ; for, while every- 
thing aided us in our national advancement, she drank the 
bitterest dregs that were ever poured out for the mental crush- 
ing of a people. 

But, in speaking of her chances in the great march of nations. 



we are looking into the ftiture, when this Mexican chaos shall 
have cooled down, and the volcanic elements so rudely stirred 
to action by her priesthood shall find outlet in more peaceful 
pursuits ; when that great cloud of fifteenth century darkness 
which found its Spanish-American focus in Mexico shall be 
swept away by the advancing sun of modern civilization, and 
her people, freed from the incubus of a long night of bigoted 
religious misrule, may really develop their unexampled oppor- 
tunities for national prosperity. 

The insurrectionary outbreaks which have so long desolated 
the Spanish- American countries are necessary to their progress 
in the direction of civilization ; at each new revolt, some griev- 
ance, some curse which the rule of old Spain inflicted upon 
them, is thrown into its grave, and the next uprising buries it 
completely. JSTo one who has not lived in Spanish- American 
countries and studied their colonial history, can judge of the 
depth of the flood of -entailed woes in which they have had to 
float their republican arks for a half century, until the subsid- 
ing revolutionary surges might give them some hope of rest. 
Nor does history present instances in European, progress where 
so much misrule has been shaken ofi" so quickly. 

In all the Spanish- American republics, it will be found as a 
rule that, in proportion to then* distance from Mexico, the great 
center of Spanish- American Catholic power, so has been their 
progress in civilization since their war of independence ; for the 
great prime causes, especially in Mexico, of the numerous revo- 
lutions, have been the attempts of the progressive portion of 
her people to shake themselves free from the crushing rule of 
the clergy. But circumstances far back in the history of Spain, 
and having more direct and powerfully drawn lines of cause and 
effect than most historical events, conspired to turn Spanish 
character into a tide that spent its full and culminating force 
upon the American colonies. 



Spain, at the very date of the discovery of America, was 
taking breath after the most terrible religious war on record. 
It had taken nearly eight hundred years tor the flow and ebb 
of the Moslem tide, and in that time the whole nation had 
received an intensely concentrated religious education in a 
single given direction. Spain was the great battle-ground, the 
bulwark of Catholicism against the more tolerant Moslem faith, 
whose cimeters, having carved their way across her territory, 
were threatening to rest on the plains of Italy, under the 
shadows of the Moslem standards which were advancing west- 
ward. Spurred on by all the fiery fanaticism which the Catho- 



lie faith could inspire, the whole nation lost itself in a single 
idea, and became the mighty exponent of Catholic militant 
power in western Europe. As war rolled on, and shock after 
shock baptized the Cross in Moslem blood, the mind of Spain 
lost its balance ; every element of the intellect was forced into 
the channel of religious fervor, until Spain became educated to 
engraft upon her moral code the most revolting crimes."* Relig- 
ious fanaticism, true to its instincts to enslave, not to cultivate, 
the intellect, step by step crushed out every ennobling influence, 
until the former generosity of Spanish character lost itself in 
the darkness which advanced southward with their armies. 
The wild tide, while it hurled back the Moors and drowned 
human progress in its waves, at length reached the Spanish 
Jews, who, with all theu' advancement in civilization, refine- 
ment, and wealth, bent to the blast which seemed to drive civ- 
ilization to the shelter of the Ci'escent. At length came the 
Inquisition, to enthrone itself upon the ruin, fit sovereign to 
crush out the last spark of intellectual ojjposition to religious 
fanaticism, and in the wild wreck to sway the destinies of a 
people. 

The rulers of Spain were at that time the monks and inquisitors. 
Their sovereign, the exponent of a religious idea, turned the 
thunderbolts in his power to the task ol the upholding of the 
Cross and the overthrow of the heretic. The whole country 
became' a vast monastery, in which the stormy elements of the 
times swayed natures as potent for religion, ambition and ava- 
rice as ever figured in history ; and all these elments swayed by 
the Roman pontifl!' became in his hands the lash with which he 
scourged Europe. The brain of Spain, at all times powerful 
in the direction of its education, proved what mighty efforts man 
can make when his forces are led in a given direction. The 
period produced some of the most extraordinary men of history, 
and though we lament the talent which, perverted, flooded all 
opposition to its inclinations, we can but admire the genius 
which could spring from such elements and wield such power 
with so much success. 

Suddenly the barriers which had for so many centuries held 
in check the flood of religious fervor were no more. Swept 
southward by the fanatical torrent, the Moors had disappeared 
across the Mediterranean, and Spain was at length free from 



* " Any one, it was said, might conscientiously kill an apostate whenever he 
could meet him. There was some doubt whether a man might slay his own 
father, if a heretic or infidel, but none whatever as to his right, in. that eveat, 
to take away the life of his son or his brother." — Prescott's Ferdinand and Isa- 
bella, vol. 2, jo. 451. 



civilization and the Crescent — the spiritual fervor was at a 
loss where to vent its fury ; the national mind, missing its ac- 
customed recreation, turned its forces wherever the sanctity of 
the Cross was to be upheld, and found employment under Car- 
dinal Ximenes, in a campaign against the Moors of Northern 
Africa, or, later still, against Solyman the Magnificent, in 
Hungary, and the crushing of Protestantism in Germany. But 
this was not enough for the occupation of all the turbulent 
spirits to which eight centuries of warfare had given birth. 
They sighed for a wider field, and as if destiny had fixed the 
proper moment, the ships of Columbus brought back the tidings 
of the wonderful New World which was to become a curse to 
Spain, of the vast fields which were open for the planting of the 
Cross and the propagation of the faith. The stories of untold 
treasures to be gained there expanded like wave ripples, and 
pandering to the cupidity of the mind linked its two most pow- 
erful forces, religion and avarice. The brain of Spain became 
a vast crucible in which the fiery Spanish imagination melted 
down the wealth of the New World and threw its power into 
the religious idea that still swayed the nation. The conquest 
of Mexico by Cortez, the holde&t ^Uhustero of his time, and the 
overthrow of the Empire of the Incas by his cousin, Pizarro, 
with the tide of treasm-e which immediately poured into Spain, 
inflamed to a still higher degree the imagination which had been 
tame in its estimates of results. To the Spaniard the new sun 
which shimmered in the west was full of opulent empires only 
awaiting the Cross and sword of some bold adventurer to build 
a mighty family upon their ruins. 

Expeditions launched out in quick succession and headed 
toward the New World. They were composed of hardy sol- 
diers who had bronzed their faces in the wars of Italy under 
the great captain, or in the wars of Spain against the Moors ; 
of Hidalgos of all classes ; from the noble with royal blood 
to the " Hidalgo de Bragueta ; " and while they drew into their 
wild excitement much of the best blood of the Peninsula, they 
also furnished an outlet for much of the most turbulent and un- 
principled element of the Spanish population. The first expe- 
ditions were generally of a better class than the emigration 
which followed. The countries being all occupied or appor- 
tioned to Adalantados there was left no inducement to men to 
organize such knightly expeditions as Pedro de Mendoza fitted 
at his own cost and led to the conquest of the La Plata region 
in 1534. Mendoza in this expedition agreed to take with him 
one thousand men, well armed and equipped, with physicians 
for the sick, and a number of missionaries for the conversion of 
the Indians. The latter point was particularly insisted upon by 



tlie Emperor. Not even the salary of an Adalantado — two 
thousand ducats per ye^ — was to be claimed by Mendoza. It 
was, moreover, especially stipulated in his contract that if any 
sovereign prince should fall into his hands his ransom, although 
belonging by law to the Emperor, should be divided among the 
conquistadores, deducting only the royal fifth. It was by such 
contracts as this that the New World was apportioned to the 
adventurous spirits of the times. To indicate the intense ac- 
tivity of the Spanish mind in the direction of America, it may 
be stated that, so soon as the terms of the contract were promul- 
gated, crowds of all classes presented themselves. No less than 
fifty grandees and gentlemen of distinction took part in this ex- 
pedition. Among them was Don Juan de Osorio, who had 
gained great renown in the wars of Italy ; Don Diego de Men- 
doza, a brother of the Adalantado, and who was named Admiral 
of the fleet ; Juan de Ayolas, Don Domingo Martinez, after- 
wards a famous poet ; Francisco de Mendoza, major domo of 
the King of the Romans, and Don Carlos Dubin, foster brother 
of the Emperor ; all volunteers led by the spirit of adventure 
and the desire of riches. The multitude desirous to embark 
became so great that it was necessary to sail before the ap- 
pointed day ; and when the account was taken of the number 
on board the fom'teen vessels which composed the fleet, it was 
found that instead of the one thousand men for which Mendoza 
had stipulated, there were twenty-five hundred Spaniards and 
one hundred and fifty Germans, besides the crews of the ves- 
sels.* 

It did not appear to be the policy of Spain to found agricul- 
tural dependencies. The New World, in its earlier develop- 
ments, was considered a vast treasure-house of the precious 
metals. The expeditions of Hernando Cortez and Erancisco 
Pizarro had demonstrated the truth of the theory, and Spain 
acted upon this principle, expecting in return for her expeditions 
not agricultural but mineral products. Wherever agricultm-al 
settlements were formed, as on the banks of the La Plata, they 
were the results of the disappointed hopes of the cmiqidstadores, 
who, failing in their attemps to realize their golden dreams, had 
been forced to cultivate the lands around them to sustain life. 

The conquest of the country, whether to glut their avarice 
or religious bigotry, was the prime object ; and they carried it 
onward with a courage and perseverance w^hich the sole exer- 
cise of the two most powerful elements of the mind could bring 
to bear for the object in view. The tide of conquest, after des- 
olating Mexico, swept across the Isthmus of Panama and over- 

* See Sir W. Parish's Rio de la Plata. 



.10 

threw the Empire of the Incas. Southward it flowed, bearing all 
before it, until at Yaldivia they found -something of the com*age 
in the Araucanian tribes which animated their own swords ; 
and from that day to this the Araucanians, Huelches, Puelches, 
Pehuenches, and r ampas have held their territory.* 

The country in great part conquered, there became no longer 
any new kingdoms awaiting the adventurous sword ; and the 
problem then was to make the most of the silver harvest which 
had fallen into their hands, and to see how much precious metal 
might be produced in the shortest possible time. The wars of 
Charles V. and Phillip II. demanded that the colonies should 
produce largely ; and between the exactions of the clergy and 
the demands of the Crown, the colonies were ground into silver, 
grained through Indian blood. The sway of the earlier con- 
querors overthrew a civilization in Mexico and Peru which they 
scarcely replaced during their occupation of the country. 
Spanish America was wrecked, and like a huge hulk thrown 
among savages, she was torn in pieces to obtain the metal that held 
her together. It is mournful to contemplate what a garden she 
might have been to the mother country had a liberal policy 
ruled the councils of the nation in its government. What could 
have been the government of the colonies during that long night of 
Spanish misrule that it could so brand itself upon them, that 
after fifty years of revolutionary throes, they have been unable 
to shake themselves entirely free from the curses which still 
linger in their valleys and hold the cup of misery to the lips of 
their people. Humanity miglit well draw a veil over these 
woes. It is a sickening tale of horror to run through the three 
hundred years of sword, bullet, fagot, torture, and famine ; but 
a glance at it is necessary to our views of the leniency with 
which we should judge the Spanish- American people in their 
struggles for stable government. In Mexico, especially, every- 
thing appeared to conspire to hold her in the depth of physical 
and mental degradation. Under the Viceroys she suifered all 
the miseries which bad government at home, administered by 
unprincipled colonial ofiicials, could deal out to her. 

Although the " Laws of the Indies " gave the right to Creoles 
to hold even the highest offices, the law of Charles Y. stating 
" that the discoverers, the settlers and their posterity and those 
born in the country were to be preferred before all others in the 
offices of the Church, State, and jurisprudence," yet of the one 

* The author has had the pleasure of participating in two battles against the 
banded tribes above mentioned, and can attest to their courage, which has lost 
nothing of its former .energy. We have seen them charge a regiment of modern 
infantry with rude lances made of reeds, having sharpened pieces of hoop-iron 
bound to the ends of them with hide thongs. 



.11 

hundred and sixty Yiceroys who ruled during the time that 
Spain held her colonies only four were Creoles or natives of the 
colonies by Spanish parents ; and these four owed their position 
to an education receiv^ed in the mother comitry, to which they 
had added a powerful home influence. Every situation, even 
the lowest Custom-House clerkship, was held by an European. 
Of six hundred and two Captain Generals all but fourteen were 
Spaniards. 

The laws were very rigid in reference to the conferring of 
ecclesiastical benefices upon the descendants of the conquista- 
dores and " pacificators " of the country ; but they were so 
evaded that, notwithstanding the law stipulated that no Spaniard 
could hold such a benefice, even if appointed by the King him- 
self, yet of five hundred and fifty ecclesiastics who had reached 
the episcopal dignity in the ISTew World, only fifty-five were 
natives. The Viceroys,* with rare exceptions, were men whose 
ruined fortunes and profligate life at home had left them no 
hope, unless an appointment in the New World might enable 
them in a few -years of its occupancy to return loaded with 
plundered wealtn. Generally, men of the vilest antecedents, 
court parasites, uneducated and bigoted, they appeared to be 
selected as crushing matjhines for colonial silver mines. They 
were the first to violate the law which allowed the Creoles to 
hold office. The distance to the mother country and the fact 
that all complaints had to pass through the hands of those who 
"held office were eflfectual preventives to all redress of this great 
grievance. At one time, under Godoy's rule of the Indies, every 
office in the Mexican viceroyalty was publicly sold at auction. 

The power of the Yiceroy was more than regal. The troops 
were entirely imder his command. Every civil and military 
appointment was dependent upon him as President of the " Real 
Audiencia," which controlled all appointments by virtue of the 
" Laws of the Indies." His salary was $60,000 per year : yet 
off of this he lived like an eastern monarch and returned home 
in a few years with a princely fortune. " He reaped profits on 
the illegal sales of titles and distinctions, granting licenses and 
the introduction of foreign goods," while " at one time even 
government situations were in great demand without a salary,"f 
the opportunities for plunder were so numerous. Special priv- 
ileges or " Fueros " were granted to Spaniards which enabled 
them to make vast sums of money. Spanish-America appeared 

* There were originally but two Viceroyaltiee, Mexico and Peru. The Vice- 
royalty of New Grenada was established in 1718, that of Venezuela in 1731, that 
of Chile in 1734, and that of Buenos Ayres in 1778.) 

f See Ward's Mexico, 



12 

to be an immense field over which avarice run riot in acts of 
oppression and misrule. 

The repa/rUmentos and the mita were other evils forced upon 
the country. The mita^ as if to grind out every physical effort 
of the Indian, imposed the most abject slavery. It was a year's 
personal toil exacted from him ; and the owner of every mine 
had a right to a certain number of Indian workmen, to whom 
he paid four reals (fift}'' cents) per day. This was insufiicient 
to keep the Indian and his family from starvation. A system of 
credit was however established, whereby the Indian could re- 
tain life while his physical energies endured, the owner of the 
mine crediting him with absolute necessities ; but if at the end 
of his term of service he was in debt, the law forced him to re- 
main until it was paid. As it was impossible for him to pay it, 
the poor Indian found no relief from his misery except in death, 
which from scanty food, hard labor, and exposure, seldom gave 
him more than two or three years' lease of existence. The de- 
struction of Indian life was immense ; to be detailed to work 
in the mines was considered by the Indian as a sentence of 
death. Out of his scanty earnings he was obliged to pay a 
capitation tax of eight dollars per head, not to speak of the ex- 
actions of the clergy, which will be hereafter mentioned. The 
result upon the Indian element in Mexico was not so crushing^ 
as in the other colonies farther removed from the mother coun- 
try, consequently more liable to misrule ; but even in Mexico 
the philanthropic Las Casas has depicted cruelties which freeze 
the blood. In the 1,400 mines of Peru, it is stated* that no 
less than 8,285,000 Indians perished under colonial rule ; but 
this must be an exaggeration. The Indian could not hold prop- 
erty to exceed the value of $50 without permission of the " Pro- 
tector de los naturales," appointed by the King. 

Education, at all times necessary to the intellectual expan- 
sion of a people, was confined in the colonies to the narrowest 
limits. While the rest of the world was basking in the sunshine 
of a mighty intellectual advancement, while Protestantism was 
confirming the right to think which God gave to man, the 
whole of Spanish- America was overspread with the dark veil of 
bigotry. The curse which had rested on Europe for so many 
centuries, and from which, after long and tremendous efforts, 
she had shaken h^;self free, fled to the New World, where, 
nursed by ambition, avarice, and all the most fearful elements 
of perverted human natm^e, it found a soil where its seeds, 
planted by the Yiceroys and their parasites, and nurtured by 



* See General Miller's. Memoirs. 



13 

the clergy, weighed heavily upon the oppressed Creole and Indian 
races. 

The only studies permitted in the schools were Latin gram- 
mar, ancient philosophy, theology, and civil and canonical 
jurisprudence, while the only history taught was that of Spain. 
Public schools were forbidden under plea that " it was not ex- 
pedient for learning to become general in America." Complete 
ignorance was the policy imposed. The Board of Trade at 
Buenos Ayres was not allowed to establish a school of mathe- 
matics, it being suppressed by the Yiceroy Joaquin del Pino. 
Juan Francisco, an Opata chief, journeyed on foot to Mexico, a 
distance of five hundred miles, and crossed the Ocean to Mad- 
rid, to solicit the privilege of teaching to his tribe the mere 
rudiments of education. This petition to the " Council of the 
Indies " was rejected in 1798. Cirilo de Castella, a cacique, 
failed in a similar cause, which, after a twenty years' effort at 
Madrid, resulted in his death. Merida, in Yenezuela, was, by 
Charles lY., refused permission to found a university. In 
Mexico every effort in a similar direction proved entirely fruit- 
less. With the exception of Peru, Buenos Ayres, and Mexico, 
printing presses were denied to the colonies. In the latter vice- 
royalty, so late as 1806, there was but one printing press, and 
that was under the control of the government, to promulgate 
laws for the crushing of the people and the exaction of 
revenue, 

. It is unnecessary to detail the acts committed during this 
long night of saturnalian horrors which held high carnival 
from San Francisco to Yaldivia. We shall find in the war of 
the Revolution sufficient human suffering to pander to the 
naturally morbid condition of the mind which delights in pic- 
tures of concentrated misery. 

During the long colonial dependence of the Americas, the 
exclusive policy of the mother country had shut them out from 
the progress of the Old World ; they gained nothing by abra- 
sion with other nationalities ; they were free from the heretical 
doctrines which were rocking Europe like a cradle, and which 
were giving birth to a new era in the history of religion and 
civilization. The jealous exclusion of all historical information, 
except that portion of the history of Spain, which, having passed 
the censorship of the clergy, was deemed fitted for the colonial 
mind, had narrowed their ideas of humanity, and entirely un- 
prepared them for the flood of light which was to pour in upon 
them when the Bourbon dynasty was overthrown in the mother 
country. 



14 



PAET II. 

Influence of Catholicism. — The Clergy the great Revolu- 
tionary Element. — Their Immorality and Exactions. — 
The Effect on the Creoles and Mixed Races. — Bucca- 
neering — The Effect of the Invasion of Spain by Bona- 
parte — Opposition of the Spanish- American Clergy to 
the French Occupation of America. — Establishment of 
Colonial Juntas. — Severe Measures of the Cadiz Regen- 
cy. — Restoration of Ferdinand YII. — Savage Measuires 
against the Colonies. — Appeal of the Colonies to Man- 
kind. ■ ^ 

Catholicism bad found a virgin field in America, wliere it 
had luxuriated and spread its dogmas, free from all contact 
with heresies which might contaminate it. The land was free 
from the seeds of the Eleatie philosophy .which the school of 
Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Zeno had drawn from physical 
speculations. It was free from the scientific deductions which 
Aristotle and Zeno had planted in the Old World. The Church 
of Rome did not have to step into the New World and dash 
aside such theories as the opening of the Egyptian ports had 
spread over Europe. There was no contact with extraneous 
elements ; no Pantheism to the east of them ; no Greek philos- 
ophy ; no Mahommedism to overrun some of the fairest territory 
of the church ; no sects to distract the faithful; no Trinitarian 
controversy to set the mind in action. The religious force which 
had concentrated itself in the Old World burst over the virgin 
wilds of the ]S[ew like a pestilence. The fanatical monk pene- 
trated with the crucifix into the midst of the most savage tribes ; 
while sword, fire, and massacre were the true instruments used 
in the propagation of the faith, and made more converts than 
the Bible, whose blessed teachings the Indians received at the 
point of the sabre. Truly, the sword holds mighty arguments, 
and, as Mahommedan and Christian have proven, makes more 
converts than tongue or pen. 

In touching the results of the establishment of Catholic 
power in the New World, we are not attacking the high moral 
teachings of the Church of Rome, but the perversion of its 
religion when in the hands of bad men, and its wonderful 
capacity for such perversion. We know that the Catholic 
religion was born of the moral wants of the Mediterranean 
nations, who, completely sunk in immorality, were ready to 
seize upon any faith which could lift them from the degradation 



15 

into which the crimes. and lust of the Roman empire had sunk 
them ; but, like any other great monopoly of the liuman mind 
in a single direction, it soon became perverted, and deemed no 
measure too atrocious to obtain proselytes. We may not, as 
Protestants, arrogate too much virtue in our own minds, or 
proclaim ourselves free from the same religious madness which 
wrecks what it would beautify. "We have only to look at our 
early history to find acts which are kindred to those of the In- 
quisition, and that opportunity was alone lacking to make 
proselytes with quite as much fanatical spirit as was ever used 
by the clergy of Rome in the New World. 

' In tracing the causes of the numberless revolutions of the 
Spanish- American States, we shall find that at every phase of 
their history, and especially in Mexico, the clergy have been 
the great vital principle which has occasioned the chronic revo- 
lutionary condition of the country. To form an idea of their 
power, it is necessar)^ to glance at the immense influence which 
they exercised in colonial affairs, and the vast accumulations of 
wealth which, by every art avarice could suggest, they wrung 
from Spaniard and native. There were in Mexico, in 1827, one 
hundred and fifty convents, besides innumerable parochial 
churches. The clergy collected, by the exaction of tithes, one- 
tenth of the whole jji'oducts of the country. Notwithstanding 
the tithe system was abolished in 1833 by the government, many 
of the devoted adherents of the church stiJ] suhnu't to it. It cost 
Mexico yearly to sustain her clergy $8,000,000 ; while the esti- 
mated value of church property was, in 1860, from §250,000,000 
to §300,000,000 — about one-third the valuation of the whole 
country. In the city of Mexico there are five thousand houses, 
valued at 880,000,000, of which the clergy then owned one-half at 
least. The income of the Mexican Church, in 1860, was about 
$20,000,000. In 1805, tliey held §44,000,000 cash. In 1826 
it had been reduced to 820,000,000, part of it having been seized 
by the Spanish government. 840,000,000 of mortgages on the 
agricultural districts around Puebla supported the relig^ious in- 
stitutions of that city, which is still known as the most intensely 
Catholic in the country. 

The clergA' had. side by side with Cortez. eritered Mexico: 
and, having the light of the sainted religion constantlj- before 
his eyes, the bold conqueror never refused to exchange the con- 
solation of the holy faith for the riches of the Indian. Whether 
by persuasion or the sword, they were baptized by thousands. 
'The clergy never forgot the injunction hf the Popje to require 
them to embrace the Catholic religion ; and, if the,}' were un- 
wilhng, '• to attack them with fire and swordl and exterminate 
or reduce them to slaver v." 



16 

So scandalous was the action of the secular clergy in their 
intercourse with the Indians, that Cortez wrote to Charles Y. to 
send him regulars instead of seculars. Said he : — " The latter 
display extravagant luxury, leave great wealth to their natural 
children, and give great scandal to the newly converted 
Indians." 

The time which had elapsed from the conquest of Mexico to 
the date of the revolution of Hidalgo, in 1810, had only enabled 
the clergy to expand their luxurious habits, in the ratio of their 
constantly increasing wealth, which, as we have seen, has 
amounted to almost one-half of the entire valuation of the 
country. Unchecked by any supreme power, they had rioted 
in the most unbridled excesses, heedless of the example which 
they set to their proselytes, who, in their ignorance, naturally 
followed their teachings. They contrived to lay excessive 
exactions upon everything which might contribute to the moral 
elevation of the people ; and, after the civil authorities had 
wrung the last drop of treasure out of the physical nature of 
the Creole and Indian, the clergy took them, and in their 
hydraulic religious press squeezed out the treasure from their 
spiritual development. There are, however, a few shining ex- 
amples of probity floating in this sea of moral debasement. 
Don Antonio E,aya, Bishop of Cuzco, gave in charities three 
hundred and seventy thousand dollars in eight years. The Arch- 
bishop of Charcas was held in high repute for his honesty and 
virtue, while several of the bishops of Peru atoned in part for 
the misrule of others. 

The Viceroy and his satellites exerted every eflPort to lay the 
most exhaustive taxes upon every article that might possibly 
yield a revenue. The whole country was given up to the most 
wholesale system of robbery that the world ever saw. The 
exactions laid upon the people naturally begot a carelessness 
with regard to the future, wherein they could only accumulate 
treasure to pour into the coffers of their masters, who wielded 
it both for their physical and mental oppression. In Mexico 
many a wealthy Creole, to prevent the loss of his property by 
the Inquisition, gave immense sums to the holy orders. The 
one hundred and seventy -five feast days of the year did not 
leave the poor Indian time enough to earn the enormous mar- 
riage fee, of from fourteen to sixteen dollars, which was exacted 
from him for the performance of such a service by the clergy. 
The result was that marriage was the exception, not the rule. 
It very naturally inaugurated a wholesale system of concubin- 
age, in which the clergy were the principal actors. Every social 
or family tie appeared to be broken, or, at the date of the revo- 
lution, had disappeared in the mad vortex of political and re- 



17 

ligious immorality, wliich, like a deluge, had swept over the 
land. The most brutal passions were uppermost in the Mexican 
mind. Three great castes — Spaniards, Creoles, and Indians — 
had been established at the occupation of the country, and these 
had, year after year, taken more marked features, until the woes 
of the two latter were finally forced to coalesce and form a com- 
panionship in misery. The Creoles had, at the date of the 
revolution, been ground down in proportion to the jealousy 
which their constantly increasing numbers had excited in the 
breasts of the old Spaniards, who saw, from the groans w^hich 
their intolerable exactions and cruelties had forced from them, 
that they could not be kept much longer from sharing in the 
government. The Europeans had heaped woe upon misery, 
until Spanish- America could no longer endure it. Petition 
after petition was laid at the foot of the J:hrone ; but, spurned 
in the most outrageons language, they were returned unconsid- 
ered to the colonists. A few of the veyy lowest offices in the 
Americas had been doled out to the Creoles, So late as 1 785 
the Minister Galvez referred to the fact that a few Mexicans 
held office in their country as an abuse. Thus was a wide 
breach opened between the old Spaniard and his jDrogeny. So 
late as 1817 it was asserted, in a Spanish legislative assembly, 
that " so long as a man lived in Spain, every American owed 
him allegiance." And the Oidor Bataller had a favorite 
maxim, " that while a Manchego mule or a Castilian cobbler 
remained in the Peninsula, he had a right to govern the 
Americas." 

The eifect of this policy upon the Creoles, who, at the date 
of the revolution were very numerous, was most disastrous. 
Ignorant, though possessing great natural talent, their whole 
mind had been so warped by the enslaving rule to which it had 
been subjected, that thought flowed in its channels more by 
instinct than by reason. With .minds corrupted by their mas- 
ters ; with the most disgusting vices engrafted upon their polit- 
ical upas tree ; with the clergy pandering to every known vice 
of a corrupt education ; in the culmination of three centuries 
of the vilest excesses ; with honor a myth, virtue a mockery, 
and honesty buried deep in the foul pool of crime and horror, 
which seemed to have poured down upon them in a ceaseless 
torrent, they drank from this sea of misery, until natm*e, over- 
loaded, shook itself free by revolution. 

Following the ideas which were traced out in the action of 
the Europeans, the Creoles imbibed the spirit of their oppressors, 
and deemed that the only honorable employments were to be 
found in the army or in the cliurch. In the latter, it had been 
the policy of the royal government to cherish its temporalities ; 
2 



18 

and thus the " mayorazgos," or rights of primogeniture, fre- 
quently forced the younger sons into the religious orders ; but 
after the right of primogeniture was abolished, during the 
revolution, the church became unpopular as a profession, except 
for the lowest classes. , We shall see, in the course of the Mexi- 
can revolutions, the results of this action, both in the military 
and in the church. 

The only ports from which the Spanish Americans could 
have communication with the mother country were Porto Bello 
and Yera Cruz. It was as late as 17Y4 before the colonies were 
allowed to communicate with each other, and not until about 
fifty years before the revolution that commerce from any other 
port than Seville, in Spain, could be carried on with the col- 
onies. It was not until 1713 that the ships of any other nation 
were allowed to touch at any Spanish colonial port. Great 
Britain, at this date, in her contract to supply slaves, had a 
very slight trading interest granted to her, but confined to the 
ships in which the slaves were transported. ISTot until 1764: did 
monthly packets, which were Spanish, commence running to 
Havana, Porto Bello, and Buenos Ayres ; and it was not until 
1810 that the ports of Mexico were fully opened to foreign 
trade. Spain not only claimed the exclusive jurisdiction of all 
the Spanish Americas, but even the surrounding oceans, and it 
was these claims which gave rise to the disputes between the 
Spanish Crown and Queen Elizabeth, who held that Spain had 
no right to the possession of territory which she did not actually 
occupy. This controversy, in connection with the attempts of 
the Dutch and English to trade in ISTew Spain, gave rise to the 
buccaneering expeditions which made the Gulf of Mexico ring 
with the romantic deeds of the freebooters, the capture of richly 
freighted Spanish galleons, the plundering of Spanish American 
towns, the sacking of the richly ornamented cathedrals, and 
other riotous deeds, which gradually caused the buccaneers to 
sink into pirates, who then seized upon some of the fairest West 
Indian ports, and, perching their lookout towers upon the com- 
manding points, were ready at any moment to dart out upon 
the rich treasure ships of Spain. 

On the 29th July, 1808, in the midst of the circling influences 
which the despotic policy of Spain had produced in the colonies, 
the news arrived of the invasion of the mother country by the 
troops of Bonaparte, the deposing of Ferdinand YII. on the 5th 
of May, 1808, and the resigning to Joseph Bonaparte of all the 
rights of the Bourbon family to the crown of Spain. It is ne- 
cessary to trace this phase of Spanish history for a moment. 
Revolutionary measures opposing the French invasion were 
immediately inaugurated, and several juntas were established in 



19 

different parts of the country ; these juntas, separately claiming 
jurisdiction in the colonies, occasioned the greatest uncertainty 
as to which they owed allegiance : this naturally assisted in 
shaping the events which now followed. Finally these juntas 
resolved themselves into the " Supreme Junta of Seville," con- 
sisting of twenty-three members, mostly of the nobility. It met 
June 6, 1808, and proclaimed allegiance to Ferdinand VII., 
whom they attested had been deposed by the French army, and 
had been forced to surrender the royal rights of a family which 
were not in his power to sm-render. Meanwhile Joseph Bona- 
parte had sirmmoned one hundred and lifty deputies, ninety-two 
of whom assembled and accepted the constitution which IN'apo- 
leon had prepared for them. This constitution provided that 
the colonies were to be represented in the general Cortes at 
Madrid, and enjoy all the rights and privileges of the mother 
country. 

From Ferdinand YII. and the Council of the Indies orders 
were immediately forwarded to the colonies to transfer to 
France their allegiance. The emissaries of King Joseph were 
immediately scattered throughout America to make the transfer 
more certain, and to receive the submission of the country. 
The old Spaniards vacillated. Some were at first for accepting 
the new order of things, fearful of losing their fat offices, but 
an element had crept into the problem which, though quiet in 
its action, was nevertheless more powerful than all the others 
combined. It was for the interest of the Catholic clergy in the 
New World to oppose the French occupation of the Americas, 
for the government of King Joseph had threatened drastic re- 
forms in the Church, which would militate powerfully against 
the monopoly which the clergy of the New World held over 
the toUgates to heaven. The consequence was that everywhere 
the clergy opposed the French occupation. M. de Sastenay, 
who was sent to receive the submission of the inhabitants of the 
Rio de la Plata, was imprisoned, and the proclamation of King 
Joseph was thrown into the flames. 

At Caraccas the government officials made every effort to 
turn the government over to the French, who had heavily 
bribed them ; but the people assembled on the 15th of July, 
1808, and took an oath of allegiance to Ferdinand YII. 
Throughout the colonies the clergy used their influence to in- 
struct the lower classes of people to support the cause of Fer- 
dinand ; and these raised immense sums and forwarded them to 
Spain to aid the dethroned King in regaining his crown. Ninety 
millions dollars were raised for this purpose, and the religious 
enthusiasm became so great that many colonists crossed the 
ocean to fight in the ranks of the revolutionists. But the mo- 



20 

ment had arrived for which the Americans had long hoped, and 
though loyal still, they seized upon it to advance their social 
position. Efforts were made by the Creoles to disseminate 
through the masses the idea of their importance and the value 
of independence. The moving force was the desire to shake 
themselves free from the dominating hand of the Europeans, 
but not to separate from the mother country, providing they 
could have equal rights with the old Spaniards. The interests 
of the clerg}^ coinciding for the time, the moment appeared 
most propitious. Loyalty was, however, a strong element in 
the Creole character, and it will be noticed that they made every 
effort in favor of tlieir Sovereign before the action of the 
" Supreme Junta " and Cadiz Regency forced them to declare 
their independence of the mother country. 

The period which had elapsed from the first news of the 
French invasion of the Peninsula until 1810, was all quivering 
with the agitation of the elements which, in the colonies, had 
been -so long subject to the control of the few. They main- 
tained themselves in complete uncertainty as to their future, 
and the whole political forces of the country being unsettled, 
left the people to imagine the wildest theories -with respect to 
their future government. It was in this condition that they re- 
ceived news of the dissolution of the Supreme Junta of Seville, 
and that some of its members had been accused as traitors ; 
that the French had conquered the whole of Spain, excepting 
Cadiz, where a Regency had been illegally established by the 
President of the defunct Junta, who published a decree, with- 
out date, naming the five members who composed it. 

During this uncertain condition of colonial affairs, the Vice- 
roy of Mexico, Jose Iturrigaray, more liberal than many of his 
predecessors, had espoused the popular side and assisted in the 
formation of a Colonial Junta, which placed him at its head to 
represent the interests of King Ferdinand during his captivity. 
But the power of the old Spaniards, who still held the principal 
offices, both civil and military, was more than a match for the 
unorganized Creole faction, and they, therefore, immediately 
seized Iturrigaray and forwarded him a prisoner to Seville, 
where the Junta approved the action, rewarded those who had 
deposed him, and appointed another Viceroy, Yanegas, who 
was sent to assume control of affairs in Mexico. It appears 
that the Supreme Junta of Seville not only claimed full control 
of all Spanish affairs during its existence, but endeavored to 
assume control of all the affairs of the Kew World, that they 
might obtain sufiicient funds to wage war against the French 
and drive them out of the Peninsula. They were, therefore, 
bitterly opposed to the establishment of provisional govern- 



21 

ments by the different viceroyalties, and took measures by every 
method in their power to prevent such proceedings, proclaiming 
as rebels all who engaged in their organization. 

The Regency which had been organized on the 29th of Oc- 
tober, 1810, decreed a very democratic constitution, infringed 
seriously upon the religions influences of the Church, and abol- 
ished the Holy Tribunal. The effect of this upon the l^ew 
World was to bind the clergy more firmly in their opposition to 
the Regency, and the support of the colonial juntas, which gave 
more hopes of a continuance of religious monopoly. 

The old Spaniards, who had so monopolized colonial offices, 
were generally excluded in the formation of the colonial juntas. 
In Buenos Ayres they were wholly so ; but in Chile Spaniards 
and Creoles joined in the general movement until the former, 
attempting to restore the old order of things, were entirely ex- 
cluded from the Junta there established. The Spaniards, at 
first inclined to espouse the French cause, found that in opposi- 
tion to the Creole and church interests, it was impracticable ; 
they, therefore, with the hope of continuing their monopolies, 
espoused the cause of the Cadiz Regency which threatened to 
overthrow all the colonial juntas, and restore America to its 
former dependent position. The native element had, however, 
grown too powerful to be treated with impunity ; the avalanche 
of free thought and action had received its impetus, and was 
destined to roll through the land crushing out all attempted 
opposition. The people had tasted the waters at the spring 
of power, for w^hich they had so long sighed, and though the 
fomitain has often, from that day to this, flowed blood instead 
of water in its attempts to free itself from the poison of colonial 
rule, liberty and progress are still the moving forces of the 
Spanish- American mind. 

The first impulse of the Cadiz Regency was to deal liberally 
with the colonies. On May 17, 1810, they declared them open 
to free trade in all articles of their own production which Spain 
could not consume. The merchants of Cadiz, all-powerful in 
their monopoly of the colonial trade, found means to have this 
decree revoked one month after its issue ; and the Regency 
went back to the old system of trade throughout America. It 
was too late to exercise such a vacillating policy ; the colonists 
had discovered their rights and were now determined to assert 
them, while, from reasons already mentioned, the clergy sided 
with them. 

It is a notable fact that the revolution in Spain against 
French power was incited principally by the parish priests, 
while the nobility and higher orders were the principal adher- 
ents of King Joseph. There was a similar power existing in 



22 

America ; the " Curas," who were in immediate contact with 
the lower classes, swayed their minds in any desired direction, 
and the lower orders of the clergy, being composed entirely of 
Creoles and mixed races, naturally exercised their influence in 
the direction of the provisional juntas from which they had so 
much to hope. 

Strong in the belief that by provisional governments tliey 
might be enabled to hold the country for Ferdinand YII., tliey 
established juntas almost simultaneously in all parts of the 
country : At Caraccas, 19th April ; Buenos Ayres, 25th May ; 
New Grenada, 3d July ; Bogota, 20th July ; Carthagena, 18th 
August ; Chile, 18th September, and Mexico, 16th September, 
1810. 

'No people in history were ever blest with a more favorable 
opportunity to free themselves from the crushing despotism that 
weighed upon them than were the Spanish- Americans. Their 
whole coimtry contained but very few Spanish troops. In fact 
so convinced was the mother country of the loyalty of the col- 
onies that immense districts had been guarded with but the 
shadow of an army. 

When the Regency received news of the formation of colo- 
nial juntas, they were animated with the utmost fury against 
the colonists. They immediately dispatched a royal commis- 
sioner to Yenezuela, who was " to assume the regal power to its 
fullest extent ; to remove, suspend, or dismiss the authorities of 
every rank and class ; to pardon or punish the guilty at plea- 
sure ; to use the moneys belonging to the royal treasury," &c. 
The Junta of Caraccas refused to receive him. Yenezuela was 
then declared in a state of blockade, although there was not a 
ship to enforce the decree. 

With money w^hich the colonists had furnished the Regency 
to uphold the cause of Ferdinand YII., an expedition was im- 
mediately organized and sent to Yenezuela. The whole pro- 
ceedings of the colonies were declared revolutionary, and in- 
structions were given to the Spanish forces to devastate the 
country with fire and sword. So thoroughly were the orders 
carried out that they often murdered their own brothers and 
relatives whom they found among the insurgents. General 
Calleja in a dispatch informs the Yiceroy that, after losing one 
man killed and two wounded, he put five thousand betrayed 
Indians to the sword, and that the total Indian loss was double 
that number. Most of them were killed while on their knees 
begging for mercy. 

Caraccas capitulated to the Spaniards under General Monte- 
verde, July 25th, 1812, It had been conceded that life and 
property should be held sacred. An English naval commander 



23 

on that station thns describes how that treaty was kept: — 
" Monteverde caused to be arrested nearly every Creole of rank 
throughout the country, chained them in pairs', and had them 
conducted to the prisons of Laguayra and Porto Cabello, where 
many perished from suffocation and disease." The same officer 
states that Boves and Rosette, royalist officers, in traversing the 
route from the river Orinoco to"^ the valley of Caraccas, more 
than four hundred miles, left no human being alive of any age 
or sex, except such as joined their standard. 

Upon the restoration of Ferdinand to the throne, through 
the efforts of the English and the defeat of the plans of Bona- 
parte throughout Europe, he threw himself into tlie hands of 
the most bigoted and fanatical of the reactionary party, and 
refused to uphold the liberal constitution to whicli the Cortes 
had taken oath in March, 1812, and in which the colonies were 
placed upon a footing with the mother country, being entitled 
to one representative for every seventy thousand inhabitants. 
He immediately declared the colonies to be in a state of mutiny, 
refused to listen to any representations from them, but offered 
to them unconditional pardon. The Viceroys and all their 
acts were confirmed ; the colonists were censured for presuming 
to frame a government for themselves, and active measures 
were taken to return to the old system under which they had 
so long groaned. Large reinforcements were dispatched to 
America, and in the name of Ferdinand de Bourbon the whole 
land was made desolate. Morillo, in 1816, entered Bogota, and 
wrote to Spain that " by cutting oft' all who could read and 
write he hoped effectually to arrest the spirit of revolution." 
Six hundred of the first people of the city were hanged or shot 
in cold blood. A liberal policy in the royal council would have 
immediately restored the colonies to Spain, but this course was 
only widening the breach. 

Great Britain interposed her good offices to mediate between 
the colonists and the mother comitry, but fruitlessly. Scaftblds 
were erected on all sides ; the sword found wild work ; the 
sanguinary tide of Spanish vengeance had been loosed, and 
threateiied to inundate the whole country. It was in the midst 
of these wild throes that Spanish-American independence was 
to be born, and it was from these horrors they were to consoli- 
date their nationalities by fifty years of subsequent revolutions, 
which were the results of the curses thus entailed upon them. 
The colonists had poured out their blood and treasure to restore 
Ferdinand to his throne, and he now rewarded them with chains 
and massacre. But the revolutioD in the Creole mind had pro- 
gressed too far, and Spain had no power to again enchain com- 
pletely the mind which had caught sight of freedom. 



M 

To relate the condition of one section is to recount the 
horrors of all. The Congress of the La Plata, in their address to 
the nations of the earth, which was more like the "Groans of 
the Britons " for protection from the savages, said : — " The 
Spanish Ministers issued vigorous orders to all their generals to 
push the war and to iniiict heavier punishments.' * * ^ 
" From that moment they endeavored to divide us by all the 
■means in their power, in order that we might exterminate each 
other. They propagated against us atrocious calumnies, attrib- 
uting to us the design of destroying our sacred religion, of set- 
ting aside all morality and establishing licentiousness of man- 
ners. They carried on a war of religion against us, devising 
many and various plots to agitate and alarm^'the consciences of 
the people — by causing the Spanish bishops to issue edicts of 
ecclesiastical censure and interdiction among the faithful ; to 
publish excommunications, and, by means of some ignorant 
confessors, to sow fanatical doctrines in the tribunal of penance. 
By the aid of such religious discords they have sown dissensions 
in families, produced quarrels between parents and their child- 
ren, torn asunder the bonds which united man and wife, scat- 
tered implacable enmity and rancor among brothers formerly 
the most affectionate, and even placed nature herself in a state 
of hostility and variance." * * * " They have shot the 
bearers of om' flags of truce." * * * "They have shot 
many in cold blood after they have surrendered." * * * 
" In the town of Yalle-Grande they enjoyed the brutal pleasure 
of cutting off the ears of the inhabitants, and sent off a basket 
filled with these presents to their headquarters. They after- 
ward burned the town, set fire to thirty other populous . ones in 
Peru, and took delight in shutting up persons in their own 
houses, before the flames were applied to them, in order that 
they might there be burned to death." * * * " They have 
divested themselves of all morality and public decency by 
whipping old religious persons in the open squares, and also 
women bound to a cannon, causing them previously to be 
stripped and exposed to shame and derision." "They have 
plundered our coasts, butchered their defenceless inhabitants, 
even without sparing superannuated priests ; and, hj orders of 
General Pezuela, they burned the church of the town of Puna, 
and put to the sword old men, women and children, the only 
inhabitants therein found. They have in a most shameful 
manner failed to fulfill every capitulation we have, on repeated 
occasions, concluded with them." 

The Cortes of Spain decreed, April 10, 1813, " That it was 
derogatory to the majesty and dignity of the national Congress 
to confirm a capitulation made with malignant insurgents." 



25 

This was to annul the capitulation of 'Miranda, in Yenezuela, 
in 1812. 

Such was the rule of Ferdinand from Northern Mexico to 
the La Plata. The result was that Spanish-America found no 
opening for herself except to press onward and resist the power 
that would again enslave her, and they therefore made mighty 
efforts in the cause of liberty. Our efe)rts in the United States 
during the War of Independence pale before those of the Span- 
ish-American States to shake off the curse which weighed so 
heavily on every hope. Linked in a common cause and ani- 
mated by a common misfortmie, their efforts were not confined 
to their own States ; they marched their armies from Buenos 
Ayres, under the heroic San Martin, to Chile ; from Chile to 
Peru, over the deserts of Atacama; through the mountain 
paths of the Andes, trailing their worn forces through the 
mountain torrents, or lying down ta sleep upon the frozen snows 
of the Cordilleras. Their armies fought and bled as heroically 
as ever patriot could dream until the battle of Ayacucho vir- 
tually closed the contest. 

As before stated, the events that we have detailed had a 
general bearing throughout Spanish America. The crushing 
policy of Spain was applied to every foot of territory which she 
held on the Western Continent. In Mexico the problem of 
liberty was, however, of more difficult solution even than in 
South America, for reasons we shall now state. . 



26 



PAET III. 

Revolution of HroALGo — Convening of a Mexican Con- 
gress — Change in the Policy of the Cleegy — They 
Espouse the Insurgent Cause — " Plan of Iguala " — 
Conflict of Party Interests — Iturbide Proclaimep 
Emperor — Mexico under Republican Institutions — A 
Revolutionary Period — Only Three Systems of Gov- 
ernment — Review of the Situation of Spanish America 
PRIOR to the French Invasion — The Upward Struggle 
OF the Colonies — Mexico during this Period to the 
Revolution of Ayutla — Alvarez and Comonfort's Ad- 
mlnistrations — Attempts, under Santa Anna, to Estab- 
lish A Monarchy — Assembly of a National Congress — 
Swearing of the Constitution of 185Y— Comonfort 
Deserts the Cause — Siege of the Capital — The " Law 
Lerdo." 

On the loth of September, 1810, an nprising of the Indians 
and mixed races took place. It was called the revolution of 
Hidalgo.* It caused a variation in the Mexican revolution 
against Spain, which^made an essential diiference as to the time 
required by Mexico to free herself from the miseries with which 
Spanish rule environed her. The revolution of Hidalgo was 
essentially an outbreak against the oppression which had borne 
.heavily upon the Indians and mixed races. The civil commo- 
tions in Spain h,ad so disturbed the rule of the Viceroys that 
the Indian element had easily observed its importance in solv- 
ing the problem of future government. It was thus easy to 
incite them to insurrection. Hidalgo, a "cura," moved by 
public and private wrongs, headed the uprising, and organized 
a force of 100,000 Indians and mixed races. The whole success 
of the movement depended upon the Creoles, who then formed 
a large part of all the regular forces of the royalists. Had 
they sided with the Indians, the revolution would have been 
successful and the country freed from Spanish tyranny. Unfor- 
tunately for the Indian cause, the first body of insurgents fired 
into the Creole troops, and commenced in the towns an indis- 
criminate massacre of both Spaniards and Creoles. This united 
the two latter for mutual defence, and for a time the most ruth- 

* Hidalgo was a Creole of extraordinary natural and acquired talent. The 
great uprising of the mixed races which he organized was to break forth Novem- 
ber 1, 1810, but was, by the betrayal of the cause, precipitated, and commenced 
prematurely on the date we have ijientioned. 



27 

less barbarities were committed. The Church opposed the 
insurgents, and the Archbishop of Mexico excommunicated 
their whole force in a body.* 

At Guanaxuato, which Hidalgo stormed and sacked, the 
most terrible retribution was taken upon their oppressors, and 
for a time it appeared that the entire pure European blood 
would be forced from the country. Had the insurgents been 
properly commanded, there is no doubt but they might have 
swept every European from Mexico ; this, with a lack of the 
necessary material of w^ar, rendered it comparatively easy for 
the regular forces to overthrow them. 

This terrible war of caste was waged with savage ferocity 
on both sides. General Calleja met the insurgents and defeated 
them at Guanaxuato, where he put fourteen thousand men, 
women, and children to the sword ; for which he was created 
"Mariscal de Campo " for distingnished services, decorated with 
the Cross of the Order of Charles HI., and appointed to the 
vice-royalty. Hidalgo, through the treachery of Bustamente, 
was captured and shot July 11, 1811. The insurgents, how- 
ever, continued the revolution under General Morelos, formerly 
the lientenant of Hidalgo, wdio called a ISTational Congress, 
which met September 13, 1813, and on the following October 
declared Mexico independent. This Congress promulgated the 
" Constitution Apatzingan " October 22, 1814. 

Gradually the Creoles began to take sides with the insur- 
gents, and very many valuable officers were added to their 
ranks by the desertions from the royalist forces ; but it was not 
until 1820 that any considerable movement took place among 
the Creole forces in aid of the revolutionists. Gen. Morelos 
proclaimed that " despots and bad government, not Hidalgo, 
were the real cause of the insurrection," and the Congress 
appealed to the Creoles to join them in their struggle against 
the oppression of the dominant class, to join hands with them 
and overthrow their power. " Brethren," said they, " let us 
embrace and be happy, instead of mutually bringing disgrace 
upon our heads." If they could not have peace, they desired 
to carry on the war in a civilized manner. In article five of 

* This was a similar uprising to that of Don Jose Gabriel in Peru in 1780. 
He was a descendant of the Inca, Tupac Amaru, who was beheaded in 1562 by 
Francisco de Toledo. The Indians, having endiu-ed the most terrible oppression, 
were roused to revenge themselves upon their tyrants. Undisciplined, without 
munitions of war, but full of the courage of despair, they for a long time waged 
a desperate war against both Spaniard and Creole. With desperate valor, both 
men and women fought until Gabriel was made prisoner. As a punishment, "he 
beheld the execution of his wife and children, and many of his faithful followers ; 
his tongue was then cut out, and wild horses harnessed to his legs and arms tore 
bis limbs asunder." 



28 

tlie conditions upon which they would have peace or carry on 
the war, they said : " It is contrary to the rights of war, as well 
as those of nature, to enter with fire and sword into defenceless 
towns, or to assign by tenths and fifths persons to be shot, by 
which the innocent are confounded with the guilty ; let no one 
be allowed, under the severest penalties, to commit such enor- 
mities as those which so greatly dishonor a Christian and civil- 
ized people." They also urged the clergy to abstain from calling 
it a war against the Catholic religion. 

The war, after the reception of this message, was waged by 
Calleja with relentless fury. Almost every insurgent who fell 
into his hands was sacrificed. The insurgents were forced to 
retaliate ; and, for a time, Mexico was a perfect pandemonium. 

Circumstances were, however, fast inducing the Mexican 
clergy to throw their influence into the scale with the insurgents. 
The revolutionary troubles which immediately followed the res- 
toration of Ferdinand YII. in Spain, had shown the Church 
that it had little to hope from the mother country for a contin- 
uance of its monopolies. The blind infatuation of Ferdinand, 
in waging war upon the colonies immediately upon his restor- 
ation to power, had prevented entirely any lull in the stormy 
commotion wherein the colonies might explain more fully the 
causes which had impelled them to the course they had pursued 
during the French occupation of the Peninsula. The clergy, 
seeing in the liberal constitution of the Cortes nothing but the 
downfall of the Mexican church system, aided in the estrange- 
ment of the colonies, and urged onward the policy of complete 
independence, unless the signs in Spain might become more 
favorable to their interests. 

The Cortes had, in the liberal constitution sworn to by them, 
declared the Inquisition abolished, and effected numerous 
church reforms, while all ecclesiastical positions were placed 
under their control, and decrees promulgated against church 
property. This was a direct and staggeriiig blow to the Mex- 
ican clergy, unless they could escape its effects by freeing the 
colony from the mother country. The constitution to which 
the Cortes had sworn was held in abeyance by the revolutionary 
condition of the country, and the opposition of Ferdinand, 
until March, 1820. At that time, the Cortes being reinstated, the 
free constitution was proclaimed and sworn to by the king, who 
was forced to follow a popular will which he could not control. 
So long as Ferdinand had opposed the popular liberal party 
in Spain, the Mexican clergy clung to his cause with the hope 
of a reaction to the old system ; but when the news reached 
them of his adoption of the liberal constitution, they immedi- 
ately threw theii- whole influence into the cause of the insur- 



29 " 

gents in an attempt to establish a separate government, with 
the idea of inviting th€ bigoted Ferdinand to cross the Atlantic 
and accept the crown. At this time Augustin Irturbide came 
prominently into notice. Although a Creole he had entirely 
adhered to the church, and had thus figured in various subordi- 
nate positions. In command of a small detachment of the 
rayalist forces he had carried on an unsparing warfare against 
the insurgents. As an instance of his cruelty, he states in a 
dispatch to the Viceroy, in 1814, that " in honor of the day," 
Good Friday, " he had just ordered three hundred excommuni- 
cated wretches to be shot." Upon the clergy changing sides, 
Iturbide, under their direction, while in command of a small 
force on the western coast, in 1820, espoused the insurgent 
cause, headed the forces that flocked to his standard, and 
marched on the Mexican capital. At the small town of Iguala, 
he proclaimed the " Plan of Iguala," or the " Constitution of the 
Three Guarantees." The movement was entirely successful, 
as most all the movements for the overthrow of any established 
government have been in Mexico when the clergy have directed 
the revolutionists. The City of Mexico was occupied by Itur- 
bide on the 27th of September, 1821. Nearly the whole coun- 
try, under the influence of the clergy, sent in its allegiance. 
The newly appointed constitutional v iceroy (O'Donoju) at that 
moment arrived to assume the reins of government. He was 
forced to acknowledge the independence of the country ; and, 
in conformity with the plan of Iguala, endorse the right which 
it gave to the house of Bourbon to the throne of Mexico. 

The " plan of Iguala," declared on the 24th of February, 
1821, breathed progress and liberal government, but contained 
one element which was more potent than all the others com- 
bined, and indicated, not only the secret control which the 
church possessed in the revolutionary movement of the country, 
but its determination to carry its power into every department 
of state, and to virtually rule the country. The plan of Igu- 
ala stated : 

First. — The Mexican nation is independent of the Spanish 
nation and of every other, even on its own continent. 

Second. — Its religion shall be the Catholic, which all its in- 
habitants profess. 

Third. — They shall be all united, without any distinction 
between American and Europeans. 

* * * -x- * * 

^'■Eighth. — His Majesty Ferdinand YII. shall be invited to 
the throne of the empire, and, in case of his refusal, the Infantes 
Don Carlos and Don Francisco de Paula." 



30 



Twelfth. — An army shall be formed for the support of 
religion, independence, and union, guaranteeing these three 
principles, and therefore it shall be called the army of the 
"Three Gruarantees." 

So soon as the army which bore these principles upon their 
banners had entered the capital, a junta was established, of 
which Irturbide was proclaimed President. 

The country breathed a moment after its long struggle of 
eleven years of internecine strife, which had finally culminated 
in independence and the establishing of a junta free from 
foreign control. 

Thus the clergy, the Creoles, ahd the Indian and mixed 
races, had banded their interests and reached the first point in 
the problem of Mexican freedom. But the moment was preg- 
nant with an intense and fresh mental activity ; one step reached, 
another, perforce, must be taken, and they immediately divided 
into three parties. 

The republicans wanted a central or federal republic, and 
they opposed the military power, whom they accused of a desire 
to usurp all authority, ■v\ liich properly belonged to the whole 
people. The Bourbonists acUiered to the idea of inviting 
Ferdinand to the throne ; and, being very strongly supported 
by the clergy, were really the dominant party. The third party 
which sprang up was the Iturbidists, who desired to place their 
favorite upon the throne which the plan of Iguala had reserved 
for Ferdinand de Bourbon. A larger part of the military, 
having followed Irturbide in his successes, were in favor of the 
latter movement. The adherents of Irturbide did not, however, 
feel themselves sufficiently strong to attempt this movement 
while the clergy favored the Bourbonists. Thus the growing 
interests of the different parties daily made a wider gap between 
them, and daily pointed to the necessity for some strong hand 
to turn the powerful revolutionary elements into a peaceful 
channel. In this condition of afi'airs, news arrived from Spain 
that the Cortes had refused to ratify the treaty of Cordova, 
which the Yiceroy O'Donoju had signed with Irturbide. It 
was thus rendered impossible for any Spanish Bourbon to ascend 
the throne. 

In the uncertain position in which the Bourbonists now 
found themselve they were unprepared to oppose the rapid 
action of the Irturbidists, who now proclaimed Irturbide Empe- 
ror, under title of Augustin I., and forced Congress to ratify 
the usurpation. Immense sums were voted to maintain the 



31 

royal dignity, a large- army drained the resources of the people, 
and the Emperor, waiving all constitutional considerations, 
made himself virtually dictator. His reign was, however, a 
very short one ; the federal party had grown formidable, and 
pandering more essentially to the interests of the church, issued 
a " pronunciamiento " which roused the country, won over a 
large part of the army, and resulted, tlu-ough Generals Victoria 
and Santa Anna — the latter of whom here first appears upon 
the stormy waves of Mexican politics — in the establishment of 
a representative Congress, in August, 1823, the adoption of a 
federal constitution in 1824, and the appointment of General 
Victoria as first President of the republic. 

This was the first thoroughly considered and well digested 
constitution which Mexico had. It was, moreover, acknowl- 
edged by the whole country, while that of October 14, 1814, 
was only adopted by the section under control of the insurgent 
forces commanded by Morelos. The more perfect and demo- 
cratic republican constitution of 1857 was to grow^from the 
seeds here planted in 1824. 

The Mexican Church was in trouble. The elements of 
republicanism, following rapidly upon the heels of freedom 
from Spanish oppression, had crept into the worn frame of co- 
lonial misrule, and the intellect of the Creoles, expanding with 
the new lights of education and advancement, forced the clergy 
to direct the storm they could not breast. 

The new constitution, however, still clung closely to that 
curse upon the body politic which has been so fruitful in revo- 
lutionary throes. It provided, in Article 50, for a concordat 
with the Holy See, which was to throw nearly the whole of the 
Mexican Church management into the hands of the Roman 
pontiff. The clergy figured to exempt themselves entirely from 
any chance of government control over their property and 
monopolies. The old shadow of caste crept into it ; the secular 
and parochial clergy M^ere confined to the lower offices, such as 
parish priests. All the bishoprics, deaneries, and chapters could 
only be filled by old Spaniards. It will be remembered that 
the lower orders of church offices had been the only ones dm-ing 
colonial rule to which the Creoles and mixed races were eligible. 
Thus the old feeling of caste still shook its head above the soil 
of Mexico, and, united with the clergy, cursed the land it had 
already desolated. 

It is unnecessary to run through the long list of revolutions 
which have torn Mexico in her struggles to free herself from 
her inherited miseries. The numbers of presidents and dictators 
who have followed each other in rapid succession, shows what 
a terrible struggle and fratricidal strife has been going on at 



32 

our very doors for nearly a half century Irom the date of the 
revolution of independence. 

But in mentioning these numerous changes, it must not be 
supposed that there were as many parties sustaining different 
principles : there were never more than three ; and the whole 
country became at last swallowed up in the two great ones — the 
Church, with its reactionary system ; and the Liberals, who op- 
posed it with reforms and innovations. The latter, as we shall 
see, finally triumphed, when, in 1857, the constitution which 
they promulgated became the organic law of the land. It was 
the shock of the contending forces of these parties which threw 
the presidential power first into the hands of one, then of the 
other; making the numerous changes in power, which have 
heretofore been erroneously considered as the result of constantly 
changing political principles. The three classes of government 
which have in turn ruled Mexico since her Spanish war of in- 
dependence, are the empire, the republican federal constitution 
of 1824, the centralized military dictatorships, and the return 
in 1857 to the reconstituted federal republican government, 
under the Liberals who had so many years been advocating it 
with sword and pen. Since that date there has been another 
period of centralized military dictatorships, under Zuloaga and 
Miramon ; a return again of constitutional government, under 
Juarez ; and latterly, the attempted usurpation of the govern- 
ment by the French, for the purpose of establishing the imperial 
rule of Maximilian. 

When the viceroy alties of America severed the ties which 
had bound them to the iron embrace of Spain, they found them- 
selves exposed to the wildest theories of government. It had 
been less than a half century since they had been allowed inter- 
nal communication with each other. We have seen that the 
only political education they had received was the history of 
Spain, which had for centuries shaped its laws under the shadow 
of the inquisition. The vast influence of the Jesuits and other 
orders of the Romish clergy, all tended to the formation of 
governments in the New TV'orld which might crush out every 
spark of information which had not passed the censorship of 
the church. The religious bigotry of Spain, which we have 
seen educating itself in eight hundred years of Moorish war- 
fare, had spread its full force over the colonies, and repelled 
every ray of civilization which attempted to penetrate the 
universal gloom. 

When communication with the Spanish-Americans was 
opened, during their war of independence, the people looked 
across the Atlantic for instruction in government, and they 
saw — chaos ! " Should they be republics ? — the French repub- 



33 

lie of 1793 had fallen. Should they be monarchies ? — one of 
the kings of Spain was an imbecile, the other was a captive. 
Should they be empires? — the great emperor, as a warning, 
was bound to the rock of St. Helena." 

To the northward they saw the rising glory of the great 
republic, its wonderful advancement, its power, and peace. No 
internecine strife resounded through its valleys and covered its 
people with the symbols of mourning. They are happy ! why 
may we not be happy under a similar form of government ? 
Henceforth the United States became their solar centre ; they 
drank in its brightest rays, and fashioned their constitutional 
governments upon the model of .their great luminary. The 
material with which they had to deal was crude ; it had scarcely 
reached the eocene period of political stability. The revolu- 
tionary vista loomed up darkly before them ; but they bravely 
grappled with the problem, and, with herculean efforts, hurled 
the States into the planes of their orbits. They had baptized 
their advent into new life with the blood of their bravest sons ; 
they could have established different and temporarily stable 
governments, which would have given them rest for the moment, 
but their bold leaders resolved every malign element into the 
one great crucible, and, unsheathing their swords, exclaimed, 
" Here is the problem — we will kindle the fires of revolution 
over eighty degrees of latitude, but we will melt down these 
elements which curse us, and although we may not know the 
exact date of our regeneration, we do know that the exponent 
of that unknown quantity is liberty, and that we constantly 
approach it." 

The States thrown into the planes of their revolutionry 
orbits were in their courses most erratic. The sunshine of free- 
dom struck upon a race which had been illy prepared to receive 
its rays. There were elements in their organization which had 
driven Europe into the most exhaustive wars of the sixteenth 
centmy ; battled out of Europe, these elements had taken refuge 
and rooted deeply into the soil of the JSTew World, and at their 
first outbreak, showed how bitterly their " Dead Sea fruits " 
were to act upon the people who fed upon them. Their race 
had been taught that labor was degrading ; that honest toil was 
a curse to manhood instead of a blessing ; that there were but 
three avenues to honor — first, the Church ; second, the State ; 
third, the army. Naturally taking their ideas of action from 
those who had ruled over and educated them in a single direc- 
tion for three hundred years, even now, from the highest to the 
lowest position, they evince but too often that most unrepub- 
lican, haughty, and arrogant bearing which it must take long 
to eradicate. Their best educated men see this, and, in propor- 
3 



34 



tion to their education and breadth of views, are free from this 
defect of character. The old Spaniards had left npon them, too, 
their habits of plunder and misrule ; the eifects had to be 
eradicated. Agricultural pursuits were degrading ; they were 
to be made honorable. The gambling spirit was predominant; 
it had to be curbed. The laws were of ancient Spanish mould, 
unsuited to modern progress ; they were to be remodeled. 
France had instilled into them, among the first books which 
they received, the " red republicanism " and Utopian theories 
of the French revolution ; the efiects had to be modified. In a 
late address before the Rhode Island Historical Society, the 
learned Minister from the Argentine Republic, Don Domingo 
F. Sarmiento, said : — " You have not been exposed to the dan- 
gerous influence of France from 1810 to 18—, and I know not 
what, disturbing you with pernicious writings and evil examples, 
holding up alternately, as the maxirmtTn honum of government, 
first the republic, then the empire, next the restored monarchy, 
again the popular monarchy, then throwing down the monarchy 
and restoring the republic, crushing the republic and establish- 
ing the empire. You have not had, as we have, a more fortunate 
republic, such as the United States, as a neighbor, tantalizing 
you by holding up, as examples, its liberties, its wonderful pro- 
gress, and its federation." 

In a fierce struggle of ten years, the colonies had leaped 
from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, and suddenly, in 
the light of the progress which the nations of the world had 
made in three hundred years, found themselves dazzled with 
the eff'orts which they were forced to put forth to reach the 
level of modern civilization. They saw that, while the world 
had been advancing, they, under the iron heel of Spain, had 
lain dormant ; and when they awoke to life and breathed the 
first inspiration of liberty, they found themselves the Rip Yan 
Winkle of the sixteenth century plunged into the mad race of 
the nineteenth. They looked around them for the elements with 
which they were to effect their regeneration, and what did they 
possess ? The whole land was a wild wreck of desolation. Who 
were their educated men who were to grapple with this giant 
problem? Alas! education had been limited to the old Spaniards 
whom their ten years of civil strife had, as the first step toward 
liberty, forced from the country. The abundant talent which 
their soil had produced was as untrained as the luxuriant vege- 
tation which runs wild in their tropical districts. It wanted 
cultivation, and they set about the giant task ; but it was in 
the midst of the civil hatreds which war, famine, and entailed 
miseries had forced upon them. Where were their teachers ? 
They had none. Where were their schools ? There were but 



35 

a few private ones, and these under control of a bigoted clergy. 
Were there any public ones devoted to the expansion of the 
intellectual forces ? You might have traveled from San Fran- 
cisco to Chiloe without finding one.* When schools were or- 
ganized, to what influences were they subjected ? Suppose, at 
the beginning of the sixteenth century, a school for the teach- 
ing of liberal government, the laws of progress, the sciences, 
and all those great elements of nineteenth century mental 
development, had been established in Rome, how much military 
force would it have required to preserve it intact ? What 
anathemas from the Roman Pontiif! what secular power, 
limited only by ecclesiastical effort, would have trained its ord- 
nance upon the plague spot in their midst, until it would have 
disappeared, if only by the centripetal attrition of the revolving 
forces ! Yet this is the picture of Spanish- America when it 
broke from the yoke of Spain ; and it has been in the midst of 
such opposing elements that she has had to plant the germs of 
that educational advancement which has thus far blessed her 
efforts. " Liberty," said Rousseau, " is a succulent food, but 
difficult of digestion." He should have added, when mingled 
with all the old-time ideas engendered by bigoted opposition to 
advancement. 

Said General Bolivar, in his speech to the Congress of 
Venezuela, " Morals and knowledge are the cardinal points of a 
republic, and morals and knowledge are what we most want." 
So thought and so think all the great men of Spanish- America, 
and laboring in the task, they still struggle onward, at each 
revolution sweeping some old curse from the land, and ascend- 
ing one step higher in the scale of political progress. 

Another seed which Bolivar planted in the political soil of 
Spanish-America was, that " knowledge and honesty, not money, 
are the requisites for exercising political power." He evidently 
valued the brain, not for the gilding which enabled it to reflect 
light, but for its powers of absorption. 

ISTever were human talents put to a severer test than were 
those of Spanish- America, and especially the Mexican portion, 
to bring order out of this vast pool of the gathered misrule of 
centuries ; and never have patriots worked harder in a glorious 
cause than have those of Spanish- America for the regeneration 
of their land. But amid all the elements which they found 

* la 155], there was a university founded in the city of Mexico, and a few 
schools, supposed to be public, but public only to the privileged classes, were 
afterwards established for priests and lawyers. An excellent academy of mines 
and mining engineers gave, to those who could gain admittance, superior advan- 
tages in an art so essential to make the Mexican mines productive. All these 
schools were, however, more or less controlled by the priesthood. 



36 

wanting to aid them in their heroic struggle, that of education-, 
was the foremost ; how to educate the people became the great 
problem which has to this day agitated the first minds of the 
country, and which has been fruitful in revolutionary opposition 
to its progress. The first necessity was to confine within proper 
limits the influence of the church ; and in Mexico, constant 
hammering at its power for fifty years, although with feeble 
force, has produced the effect, if only by abrasion, to tear off 
some of its tentacula, which have been fixed upon every ele- 
ment of progress in the land, and which have spread their slimy 
curse upon every effort at mental development. Never did a 
more bitter tide fiow over a land than that ©f the clergy over 
Mexico. It has thrown surge after surge of revolution from 
one end of the countiy to the other in its mad efforts to drown 
progress, or at least to guide upon its dark tide the elements 
which it has been unable fully to hurl back. Its vast monop- 
olies of estates have held one-half of the country in mortmain, 
and have made the whole land a palimpsistj where, age after 
age, one curse has been rubbed in to give place to the next, 
what wonder that their land is revolutionary ! What wonder if 
they should take a hundred years to free themselves from this 
leper spot upon their soil ! We, born under a happier sky, and 
with our religious wars fought out for us by almost a half cent- 
ury of revolutiontary conflict in Europe, should look with more 
sympathy upon the struggle of a people for religious and civil 
freedom.' Thoughtlessly the great mass of our countrymen 
point to Mexico and South America and wonder why the polit- 
ical elements are so stormy. The North American child was 
wafted across the ocean, born of the very essence of German 
and Anglo-Saxon progress, with its religious wars all fought, its 
laws all shaped to the times, and carrying with it but one curse 
— slavery. Even this one last curse has taken four years of the 
brain, blood, and, though but of slight moment, treasure of the 
country, to sink it among the dark barbarities of the past. How 
much time, then, should we give to a people to shake off, at one 
effort, all the curses herein enumerated ? The nursling which 
the Spaniards brought to the New World was the very concen- 
tration of the religious bigotry which had sought refuge in 
Spain at the end of the fifteenth century. The child wrapped 
in the swaddling clothes woven in the religious looms of the 
dark ages of European history, was an exponent, a germ, of all 
the curses which had surged around the Mediterranean from 
the Christian era to the time that the light of modern civiliza- 
tion broke in upon Europe. It wore a garment woven by the 
seven crusades, which, from Marseilles or down through the 
Adriatic, had stretched across the Mediterranean, or from Co- 



37 

logne or Metz, had, preceded by a goat and a goose, swept 
through the heart of Eiu'ope on. the way to the Holy Land. It 
was wrapped in all the dark mysteries which the clergy of Rome 
could smuggle out of the light which was at that time breaking 
in to civilize Europe. Rocked under the upas shade of the In- 
quisition, it breathed the polluted atmosphere whicli had been 
poisoned by the ecclesiastical vengeance born of such massacres 
as that of Lavam*, and the Church of St. Mary Magdalen. By 
ten years of savage warfare, Spanish-America unrolled the 
reeking rags of the fifteenth century, and the light of liberty 
shone upon the new birth. Warped by all that ecclesiastical 
fanaticism, linked to Spanish avarice, could concentrate in a 
single element, it was plunged into the mad whirlpool of our 
present age, and expected, at a single stride, to attain our level. 
But to give them but fifty years to attain a point which it has 
taken us three hundred years to reach, is to acknowledge their 
mental superiority over us. They want time ; their revolutions 
are absolutely essential to their progress. The Mexican Em- 
peror, Iturbide, in his ostracism at Leghorn, aptly alludes to 
the false view which has been taken of Mexican afiairs. He 
says : — " ISTature produces nothing by sudden leaps ; she ope- 
rates by intermediate degrees. The moral world follows the 
laws of the physical. To think that we could emerge all at 
once from a state of debasement such as that of slavery, and 
from a state of ignorance such as has been inflicted upon us for 
three hundred years, during which we have had neither books 
nor instructors — and the possession of knowledge has been 
thought a sufiicient cause for persecution — to think that we 
could gain information and refinement in a moment,, as if by 
enchantment — that we could acquire every wtue, forget 
prejudices, and give up false pretensions — was a vain expecta- 
tion, and could only have entered into the vision of an en- 
thusiast." 

In Mexico, up to the time of the revolution of Ayutla, 
which resulted in the establishment of the constitution of 1857, 
the Holy Catholic Church has been the main feature in every 
constitution, and no reform has been attempted wherein the 
clergy have not introduced a religious element, having a ten- 
dency to maintain the fast-rooted bigotry of their spiritual 
power. Their religious, linked to their moneyed influence, has 
always enabled them to overturn all the efforts of the liberal- 
minded, progressive party, who have, however, nobly clung to 
the task of overthrowing this curse upon their body politic. In 
1833 the combinations of the progressionists had somewhat 
trammeled the clergy, but they, by bloody revolutions, upset 
jthe presidents, who followed each other in quick succession, and 



38 

were enabled, through the aid of Santa Anna, to shake them- 
selves almost entirely free fi-om any State influence. By this 
the bishops held sole control over all ecclesiastical property, be- 
coming the great bankers of the country, eflPecting loans, taking 
mortgages upon all kinds of property, and acting in all respects 
like immense commercial and moneyed corporations. 

In the proclamation of the " Basis of Political Organization 
of the Mexican Republic," the " Holy Catholic Faith " was 
the most salient feature. It held in its vicelike grasp the ele- 
ments of progress, and refused to liberate them. So early as 
1824 an attempt was made in the State of Guadalaxera to con- 
fiscate the church property ; but it was met by a decree from 
the General Congress, which opposed the measure. Congress, 
however, passed a law in 1833 abolishing Church tithes, which 
tax upon the agricultural products of the country had yielded 
the clergy a large revenue. This decree of Congress, did not, 
however, have the effect intended, for a greater part of the 
ignorant people still render into the coffers of the Church the 
old tax, which their religion teaches them it would be sacrile- 
gious to withhold. 

From 1833 revolution after revolution followed in quick 
succession, each eating into the revenues of the Church. One 
party trying to grasp at a portion of the Church property 
that they might rid the country of its curse ; the opposition, 
aided by the funds of the clergy, waging a war to retain the 
property intact. In 1834, Gomez Farias, one of the first lead- 
ers in reform, advocated in the legislative halls the confiscation 
of the Church property ; but Santa- Anna, in consonance with 
his attachment to church interests, opposed the measure. Dm*- 
ing the government of Farias and Barrigan, in 1835, a fruitless 
attempt, leading to another bloody war, was made to- confiscate 
this property, and appropriate it to the payment of the public 
debt. The liberals had, in a succession of wars and presidential 
overturnings, been gradually gaining ground and encroaching 
upon the church power, which, although eminently superior in 
financial resources, still found itself forced to make great effort 
to hold the ascendency in face of the innovating influences 
of nineteenth century progress and the advancing civilization 
which from the United States was constantly impinging upon 
its border. A law was passed on 7th January, 1847, by Con- 
gress, to sell or mortgage a portion of the church property in 
order to raise $15,000,000 to carry on the war against the 
United States. It was, however, never executed, owing to the 
opposition of Santa Anna then in control of the government. 

Hard pressed in 1854, the reactionists, through their cham- 
pion, Santa Anna, still nursed the hope that out of the fecundity 



39 

of Europe they might receive a royal ruler. Their efforts to 
effect this had been increasing since the independence of the 
country. Knocking constantly at the nurseries of the great 
Eui'opean royal families, they hoped when success crowned their 
efforts that their rule over the land might be confirmed, that 
the cowl might once more cover the helmet, and the saintly 
frock conceal the sword. In 1845, under General Parades, they 
had pressed the Spanish throne for a prince, but though the 
measure received the secret sanction of Western Europe, the 
moment was not propitious. But in 1854 the effort was more 
powerful. Santa Anna, then Dictator, commissioned Gutierrez 
Estrada, mth full powers, " to negotiate in Europe for the es- 
tablishment of a monarchy in Mexico," saying, " I confer upon 
him by these presents the full powers necessary to enter into 
arrangements and make the proper offers at the courts of Lon- 
don, Paris, Madrid and Vienna, to obtain from those govern- 
ments, or from any one of them, the establishment of a Mon- 
archy derived from any of the royal races of those powers, 
under qualifications and conditions to be established by special 
instructions." Though this measure was urged by the clergy 
with all their influence the effort was unsuccessful ; the great 
Republic of the jSforth was too compact, too well filled with 
the spii'it which the Monroe doctrine had infused into the peo- 
ple to allow it to look calmly on and see Western Europe un- 
dertake an armed crusade against republicanism in the JSTew 
World. The European nations saw that the moment was im- 
propitious — too dangerous — they waited. 

In 1855 the liberals had so far gained upon church power 
that General Ignacio Comonfort occupied the presidential chair. 
The ecclesiastical party had made a heroic struggle, but their 
great champion Santa Anna had, upon their overthrow, been 
forced to fly from the country. - At the moment of his depart- 
m*e, the liberals being at some distance from the capital, an 
attempt was made by the clergy to organize a govermnent upon 
a conservative basis, if possible, effecting a compromise with 
their opponents, vainly hoping to ]3rotract their power by de- 
laying the final triumph of the progressive efforts at reform 
which the liberals were so boldly hurling against them. A 
similar attempt will doubtless be made by them, in fact, we 
believe is already in progress, to effect a compromise upon the 
overthrow of Maximilian. 

Urged by the church leaders, General Pomulo Diaz de la 
Vega, who commanded the forces deserted by Santa Anna, 
attempted to organize a government at the capital. It was a 
weak military dictatorship of a few days, and scarcely worth 
the dignity of mention. The plans of the conservatives fully 



40 

arranged, Carrera was installed as nominal chief, but it was 
for a month only that he exercised a power which extended not 
beyond the city limits. The effort was in vain, the liberals 
soon occupied the capital. 

The great movement of this period, therefore, was that of 
the liberals, headed b}^ Alvarez and Comonfort, against the re- 
actionary or Church party, headed by Santa Anna. General 
Alvarez, the most prominent in the leaders of the revolution of 
Ayutla, though from his infirmities taking a less conspicuous 
part in the campaign, had, on the flight of Santa Anna, con- 
voked an Assembly, October 4, 1855, at Cuernavaca, eighteen 
leagues south of the city of Mexico. This Assembly appointed 
him to the Presidency. On the lYth of the same month he 
issued a proclamation calling an election of Deputies to a Na- 
tional Congress to meet " for the purpose of reconstituting the 
nation under the form of a popular representative democratic 
republic." This Congress met on the 18th February, 1856, and 
after prolonged sessions adopted a constitution which was finally 
sworn on the 3d February, 1857, and became, what the con- 
stitution of 1824 was before that time, the organic law of the 
land. 

The cares of government, old age and infirmities, had in- 
duced General Alvarez, on the 12th December, 1855, to resign 
and appoint General Comonfort " President Substitute." 
Comonfort was subsequently made President by a formal elec- 
tion under the constitution of 185Y, and on the 1st of Decem- 
ber of that year, again took oath to defend that great liberal 
code of laws. Afterwards, under the constant assaults of the 
clergy, and an empty treasury, which gave him no means to 
properly construct the Government, he conceived that he was 
fettered by this code whose great principles he believed he might 
sustain while he abandoned their legalized expression. He 
therefore, on the 17th December, 1857, pronounced against the 
constitution, and, aided by the Zuloaga brigade, attempted by 
a coujp (Vetdt to establish a dictatorship, which he termed a 
revolutionary government ; but he only succeeded in teaching 
the liberal party a lesson which should never be forgotten — 
not to permit another revolution within itself. . 

The reactionists seized the favorable opportunity so unex- 
pectedly ofiered to them ; and, on the 11th of January, Zuloaga 
and his brigade, instigated and corrupted by the clergy, pro- 
nounced against Comonfort, who, too late, saw and attempted 
to correct his error. He now tried to effect a compromise be- 
tween the reactionists and liberals for tbe formation of a 
moderate party, but both parties throwing him aside, he, on the 
21st of January, 1858, abandoned the capital and voluntarily 



41 

embarked for the United States, leaving to lirmer hands the 
cause he had before done so much towards bringing to a success- 
ful issue. 

The liberals, in sustaining the reforms embodied in the 
" Plan of Ayutla," which Alvarez and Comonfort had so suc- 
cessfully supported, had attacked, directly, the Church property 
through the " Law Lerdo," or law of " desamortization." Under - 
this law, the author of which was Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, a 
very able and patriotic statesman, who was at that time Minis- 
ter of the Treasury, the Church was required to sell its lands 
and houses to such of its tenants as should make application ; 
or, in default of application, to such other persons as should 
first propose for the property. The sale was to be 
effected for such a sum as the rent then paid would be 
the interest upon at six per cent, per annum. This sum was to 
be placed in a perpetual mortgage, to bear an equal interest, 
and to be held by the Church. The Government was to re- 
ceive a tax of five per cent, on the amount of sale ; it being a 
slight increase upon the existing tax on all transfers of real es- 
tate. In this manner $18,000,000 of real estate passed into the 
hands of private individuals who thenceforth necessarily sup- 
ported the Constitutional Government. ^ 

The clergy, however, left no measure untried to prevent its 
execution ; they even refused final absolution and sepulchral 
rites to purchasers. The law, however, only changed the title 
of the Church from a fee simple to a mortgage, and was intended 
to secure an enlarged proprietary and consequent improvement 
of the estates. It was not sufficiently sweeping, and the 
tame policy of a partial attack upon the clerical domain was 
the cause of its non-success at the moment. Naturally, at 
that period, the minds of the people had not been fully awakened 
to the importance of the great principles involved, and the 
effect was a compromise between the more enlightened minds and 
the conservative portion of the party, who were not fully pre- 
pared to accept the tremendous responsibilities which the Con- 
stitutional Government under Juarez afterwards assumed in the 
issue of the sweeping " Decree of Secularization " which was 
proclaimed at Yera Cruz in July, 1859. 



42 



PAKT lY. 

Accession of Juaiiez to the PEEsroEisroY — Biographical 
Sketch of his Life — Chuech Government at the Capi- 
tal — The " Laws of Reform " — The Terrible Three- 
Years' Contest — Final Triumph of the Liberals — The 
Liberal and Church Creeds — The Clergy Intrigue for 
a Foreign Intervention — The " Degree of Seculariza- 
tion " — ZuLOAGA AND MiEAMON — AoTION OF THE DlPLO- 

• MATic Corps — Manifesto of the Liberal Government — 
Effects of the Final Success of the Liberals — The 
Church Party Plundp:rs the " British Bondholders' 
Fund" — Mexico Unable to Comply with Financial De- 
mands OF THE European Governments — Renewed Activity 
OF THE Clergy to Induce Foreign Inteevention. 

By a provision of the constitution of 1857, tlie Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court, who was also Yice-President of the Re- 
public, became President in default or by absence of the Presi- 
dent elect. Fortunately for Mexico, Benito Juarez,* a man of 

* President Benito Juarez is by birth an Indian of the ancient Zapoteco race, 
which, at the time of the conquest, was one of the most powerful in Mexico. He 
was born in 1 809, in the province of Oaxaca, near the village of Ixtlan. 

At twelve years of age he left his father's herds, mingled in the excitement of a 
country fair, and disgusted with the thought of again returning home, accepted 
employment in a mule train then en route for Oaxaca. At that city he encoun- 
tered Senor Salanueva, a merchant, who, attracted by the rare natural gifts of the 
boy, adopted him, and gave him the best education within reach. The youth 
soon graduated with high honors at the College of Oaxaca; commenced the prac- 
tice of law, and rose rapidly to distinction. In 1846 he was elected member of 
Congress, after having occupied numerous honorary positions in his native State. 
He soon after became President of the Supreme Court of Justice of Oaxaca, and 
in 184*7 was elected Governor of that State. In this position he urged numerous 
public improvements, infused life into the development of mines and manufactures, 
and, by establishing numerous schools, gave an impetus to educational interests. 
In 1852 he filled the chair of Civil Law at the Institute of Oaxaca, and afterward 
became permanent President of the Institute. At this time, by the advoca.cy of 
liberal institutions, he attracted the attention of the reactionary government, then 
under the Dictatorship of Santa Anna ; was exiled, and retired to New Orleans. 

The Revolution of Ayutla, in 1854, enabled Juarez to return to Mexico, where, 
in 1855, he was again elected Governor of his native State. When Alvarez be- 
came President, ad-interim, after the overthrow of Santa Anna and the Church 
Party, Juarez became Secretary of State for the Departments of Justice, Ecclesi- 
astical Aflfairs, and Public Instruction. Under his Secretaryship was issued the 
law abolishing military and ecclesiastical " fueros," giving for the first time in 
Mexico equality before the law. After again having been Governor of his native 
State, he was, in 1856, elected to the National Congress, where he assisted in 
framing and adopting the Constitution of 185Y. 

In the first electioii under the Constitution, the progressive party nominated 



43 

sterling integrity, was holding that position at the time of the 
coujp (Fetdt of Cpnionfort. He refused to join the movement, 
and was in consequence, with several other officials, imprisoned 
imtil it was consummated ; but, upon tlie flight of Comonfort, 
and just previous to the establishment of the government of 
Zuloaga, he was liberated, and, with others faithful to the liberal 
cause, succeeded in escaping from the city. He reached the 
city of Queretaro, where he immediately issued a proclamation 
reorganizing the Liberal Government, and calling npon the peo- 
ple to rise to the defense of the Constitution and the principles 
of reform to which the whole country had taken oath. This 
was followed by a decree, on February 9th, 1858, declaring all 
the acts of the so-called Zuloaga Government null and void. 

The church party, with Zuloaga for its exponent, had gained 
possession of the capital by the flight of Comonfort. This 
was on the 21st of January, 1858. On the 22d, Zuloaga 
convoked a junta of twenty-eight persons named by himself, 
who in turn named him President of the Republic. Before the 
30th, the machinations of the church and reactionary leaders 
had induced the representatives* of foreign powers resident at 
the capital, including even the ininister from the United States, 
to recognize Zuloaga as the legitimate president of the republic. 
They apparently, either with lamentable ignorance of the great 
principles involved in the struggle, or else blinded by the mis- 
representations of the priest party, completely ignored the real 
governnjent of the country ; which, by the will of the people 
under the constitution of 185T, was still the ruling power of the 
land. This action of the diplomatic corps only aided in pro- 
longing the contest, by giving a certain character and import- 
ance to the church party before the world which it would have 
found it impossible to obtain in any other manner at this period. 
It virtually gave the church a three years' additional lease of 
contest, and they availed themselves of it to the fullest measure. 

The triumph of the principles of the constitution of 1857 
it was well known would seal the fate of the vast estates of the 
church. The hoary old giant now bared all his muscles — brain, 

Juarez for President, but Comonfort became the successful candidate. He was, 
however, in November of the same year, elected President of the Supreme Court 
of Justice, and became, by virtue of that office, Vice-President of the Republic. 
Upon the flight of Comonfort, Juarez became President. From that date his history 
is that of the country. 

* A good authority, speaking of this diplomatic corps, says : " The French 
Minister was a Jesuit ; the Minister of Guatemala a devoted son of the church ; 
the American Minister, a Southern man, wanted to treat for the purchase of terri- 
tory and became the dupe of the others ; the English Charge was controlled by 
capitalists who had played the game of monopoly so long that they thought it 
could be played forever." 



44 

sword, treasure, and spiritual power, lighted the fires of revolu- 
tion throughout the land. It was to be the last grand struggle 
of the wounded Hercules ; and, by the kindling of every fagot 
of church wrath and power, it was hoped that in one grand 
auto de fS might be consumed the constitution of 1857, and 
with it every liberal sentiment in the country. The liberals 
now hurled every element into the contest against ecclesiastical 
vengeance ; for three years the civilization of the nineteenth 
century boldly faced the armed spectre of the middle ages, and 
deluged the valleys of Mexico with the blood which it was 
hoped would wash out the stains that the maddened power of 
the clergy had blotted upon the land. For three long years, 
with varying fortunes, the red tide ebbed and flowed, burying 
in its death-grapple both bigotry and advancement. The star 
of hope for Mexico grew dim ; but her patriots, begrimed in the 
battle-smoke of fifty years of civil strife, still held their heads 
above the surges, now riding the wave now in its valley, but 
ever hopeful, ever boldly slashing at the monster which had 
fattened its bloated carcass upon their fair land. Under Zulo- 
aga and Miramon, the forces of the church, well supplied with 
material of war, waged fierce confiict with the patriots who 
gathered, half-starved, poorly- clad, and lacking in everything 
except determination, under the banner of the constitution- 
alists. 

Driven from Queretaro, the liberal government occupied 
successively Guanajuato, Guadalajara, and finally Vera Cruz. 
It was here on the 6th April, 1859, while the capital was still 
in the hands of the reactionists, that the United States recog- 
nized the constitutional government under President Juarez as 
the legitimate government of Mexico. It was also at Yera 
Cruz, in July, 1859, that the great decrees known as the " Laws 
of Reform " were promulgated. At this time there were in 
possession of the liberals twenty-one states and one territory, 
out of the twenty-four states and territories comprising the 
republic, besides all the seaports both on the Atlantic and 
Pacific. The " Law Lerdo " had been repealed by the reaction- 
ists, after the flight of Comonfort, and the property, which had 
been partly wrenched from the grasp of the church, had again 
reverted to it with all its old powers intact, so far as the juris- 
diction of the reactionists extended. But the contest had, at 
length, through all the conflicting elements which Spain had 
bequeathed to Mexico, narrowed itself to two great parties, and 
the country began to see the dawn of a permanent peace. The 
liberals, gaining ground, took heart, and through diflSculties 
which might well appall less determined patriots, their cause 
was at length triumphant. 



45 

The great victory of San Miguel Calpulalpan, on the 22d 
December, 1860, where half the reactionist army was captured, 
with forty pieces of artillery and all its munitions of war, vir- 
tually struck the death knell of the church power, and soon 
after the liberals appeared before the capital. 

While Juarez was closely besieging Miramon, in the capital, 
the clergy prevailed upon France and England to offer their 
mediation; but it was i^efused by the liberals, who entered 
Mexico January 11, 1861. Miramon and other reactionary 
chiefs fled the country. Juarez immediately proclaimed the 
revival of the civil and religious reforms of 1857. He dis- 
missed the ministers of Spain and Guatemala, and the repre- 
sentative of the Holy See, M. Clementi — all for machinations 
in favor of the ecclesiastical party. On the 9th of May, 1861, 
Juarez addressed the Congress, and proclaimed that from the 
efforts of the liberals " were born the laws of reform, the 
nationalization of estates held in mortmain, liberty of worship, 
the absolute independence of civil and religious powers, the 
secularization, so to speak, of society, whose march has been 
detained by a bastard alliance, which profaned the name of God 
and outraged human dignity." 

This was the result of the terrible three years' struggle from 
1858 to 1861 ; but the church still maintained, under Marquez 
and others, small forces in the field, which committed the most 
brutal excesses. They distinguished neither between foreigner 
or native, but upon every one they levied contributions of blood 
and treasure. It appeared to be their desire to make a pande- 
monium of the land, the better to induce a foreign intervention, 
under plea of humanity to a people whom they were crushing 
imder their bloody despotism. To the sunshine which lighted 
the land from the banners of the liberals the church opposed 
the dark creed which, forced into the Atlantic by the civiliza- 
tion of Europe, had swam the ocean and sought refuge in its 
last stronghold, Mexico. 

Look ! here is the contrast between the nineteenth and fif- 
teenth centuries : — 



Liberal Creed of Reform ajs^d Civilization. 

Constitutional government in place of dictatorship. 

Freedom of religion. 

Freedom of the press. 

Nationalization of church property. 

Army subordinate to civil power. 

Free and full opening for colonization. 



46 

Reactionist oe Church Ckeed. 

Inviolability of diurcli property, and re-establishment of 
former exactions. 

The military and clergy responsible to their own tribunals. 

Roman Catholic the sole religion. 

Censorship of the press. 

No immigrants except from Catholic countries. " 

A central dictator, only subject to the chm*ch, or, if possible, 
the restoration of a monarchy or a European protectorate. 

Such was the political condition of the country when, in 
1861, the constitution of 1857 again became dominant, and 
hope shed her cheering ray over the whole land ; but the 
mighty power of the church was not dead, although the liberals 
had confiscated a goodly portion of its estates. The clergy, 
upon their overthrow by the liberal party, had sent their ablest 
emissaries to Europe to represent the evil condition of the 
country, and to instill into the monarchists of the Old World 
the idea that Mexico was hopelessly given over to anarchy. 
Similar representations to the French Government in 1839 — 
about the time of the French naval expedition against Mexico 
— brought forth in France a pamphlet which stated that " it is 
known that it is to the clerical party that the differences which 
have arisen between France and Mexico must be attributed. 
This party wishes to bring back Mexico to monarchical rule, 
and has pushed it to a war with us in order to arrive at this 
end." 

" The priest party thought that by injustice, insult, and 
outrage, it would bring France to undertake the conquest of 
the Mexican republic, and that a monarchy would then be 
established." How well these words, written in 1839, apply to 
1861, the whole history of the late French invasion proves. 

The preamble of the " Decree of Secularization," issued at 
Yera Cruz, July, 1859, stated : " That if at any previous time 
there was room for any one to doubt that the clergy has been a 
steadfast obstacle in the way of the establishment of the public 
peace, to-day all men recognize that it is in a state of overt 
rebellion against tlie sovereign authority." 

" That in misapplying the legacies and gifts which the pious 
have intrusted to them for sacred objects, the clergy turn them 
to the public destruction by sustaining and rendering daily 
more sanguinary the fratricidal dissension which is set afoot in 
disowning the legitimate authority, and denying that the 
republic could constitute itself into any form that the majority 
selected." 



4r 

In an explanatory circular from the liberal cabinet, the gov- 
ernment stated its objects to be : 

" To bring to a definite close this bloody and fratricidal war, 
which a portion of the clergy has for a long time been foment- 
ing in the nation, with the single object of preserving its 
interests and prerogatives which it derived from the colonial 
system, thus shamelessly abusing the influence which the riches 
deposited in its hands affords it, and abusing the offices of its 
sacred ministry ; and, in order to disarm once for all that class 
of elements which serve as buttresses to support its mischievous 
sway, the government hold it to be indispensable : — - 

" 1st. To establish, as a general and invariable rule, most 
perfect independence between afi'airs of state and those purely 
ecclesiastical : 

" 2d. To suppress all corporations of regulars of masculine 
sex without any exception, secularizing the priests now embodied 
in them : 

" 3d. To extinguish equally the associations, archicofradias, 
brotherhoods, and in general all corporations now existing of a 
religious character : 

" 4th. To put a period to the novitiates in the convents of 
monks, retaining those actually existing in them, with the 
means and endowments each possesses, and assigning the neces- 
sary means for the maintenance of service in the resj^ective 
temples : 

" 5th; To declare that all property, &c." 
"We dwell somewhat at length upon this period in the his- 
tory of Mexico, for it is the time at which the plant of a fifty 
years' revolutionary growth was budding into the civilizing 
reforms incorporated into the measures which sprung from the 
Kevolution of Ayutla, the constitution of 1857, and the Laws 
of Reform, including this Decree of Secularization. The 
grand principles found in these had at length reached the sur- 
face ; but the sturdy plant had yet to face another fierce blast, 
and this time from Europe. 

The clergy, as a last resort to overthrow the liberals, sought 
the shadow of the French throne, and hoped still to write the 
doom of Mexico with a quill plucked from the Austrian eagle. 
The great military and political leaders of the Church party, 
ostracised by the liberals, filled Paris with false representations 
of their country. Miramon and Almonte, with others of the 
- Church party, who were the very exponents of the Mexican 
revolutionary woes, and who had scourged the country with 
fire, rapine and murder, hovered around the Tuileries ; and 
their plans falling upon willing ears were soon perfected. M. 
Lefevre, in a letter to the London Daily News, January 4, 1864, 



48 

ably details the tyranny of the reactionary party during the 
occupation of Mexico by Zuloaga and Miramon. First came 
two decrees annulling the alienation of church property, and 
restoring the ecclesiastical and military jurisdiction as it existed 
before 1853. M. de Gabriac, French Minister to Mexico, was 
quite prominent at that time in rendering assistance to the re- 
actionary party, for in a letter of February 2Y, 1858, he recalls 
to the Archbishop of Mexico the ser^dces which he has rendered 
to the country and to the Holy Church of that ecclesiastical 
province. " M. Zuloaga, the intimate friend of MM. Gabriac 
and Otway, had contented himself with imposing a tax upon 
capital of £1,000 and upwards." 

February t, 1859, M. Miramon, another, and not less inti- 
mate friend of these gentlemen, had attacked (and as usual as 
an " extraordinary " measure) personal property of £200 ster- 
ling and upwards, and had included the liberal and industrial 
professions in the impost. In May of the same year he had 
imposed ten per cent, on real property. Then came the " Peza " 
law, or collection of a year's taxes in advance. Then, when it 
was found that all the financial measures were insufficient to 
fill the void of the Danaides sieve, which was called at that 
time the " Public Treasury," the same Miramon taxed all at 
once, March 20, 1860 : 

First. Effective capital of £200 and upward. 

Second. The liberal and industrial professions. 

Third. " Moral capital," or tax upon the wages of em- 
ployees. 

The amount of taxes, which had been tripled by Zuloaga in 
1858, was quadrupled by Miramon in 1859, and in case of some 
Europeans — mostly French, whose minister would not interfere 
— was sevenfold. - 

The way that Miramon happened to succeed Zuloaga was 
peculiar, both being of the reactionary party. In 1858, Zuloaga 
had issued his " Christmas pronunciamiento " — the harpies of 
desolation had been quarreling about the spoils. The country 
had to be pacified, and under plea that the government of Zu- 
loaga lacked authority, they for a moment conferred it on 
Robles, who soon found it too weighty a burden and transferred 
it, a few days after, to the shoulders of Miramon, the most bit- 
ter " reactionist " of his party. 

The Ministers of France, Spain and England appeared de- 
termined to recognize this bastard gevernment, despite the fact 
that almost the whole country was in the hands of the liberals, 
and that almost every State adhered to the constitution of 1857. 
Mr. Otway, who represented Great Britain, had, while Miramon 
was General, demanded his dismissal for outrages committed 



49 

upon Britisli subjects at Sau Luis ; but so soon as Miramon 
occupied the Presidential chair he formally recognized him. 
Miramon and Marquez soon after defeated the liberals at Tacu- 
baya, entered the town, took seven "liberal" surgeons who 
were attending to the sick and wounded of both parties in the 
hospitals, and on April 11, 1859, shot them in cold blood. 
These were the acts of the party whom the allies were to shelter 
under their flag when a few years later the intervention was 
undertaken to prevent anarchy in Mexico and reinstate the 
conservative party, who, under Almonte, Miramon, Marquez, 
Zuloaga, Mejia, Miranda, and others, had spread devastation 
over their country. 

The diplomatic corps had recognized Miramon the very day 
of his accession to power. Mr. Otway had passed directly 
through Yera Cruz, occupied by the legitimate government, to 
open relations with the last tire-brand which the church party 
was able to hold aloft at a moment when they only controlled 
the cities of Mexico and Puebla, with a few adjoining villages. 
So shamefully open was Mr. Otway's collusion with the clergy, 
that it caused his recall in July, 1859. He was superseded by 
Mr. Matthew. The church party appeared to possess peculiar 
and fascinating charms for the diplomatic representatives of 
foreign governments. Upon the arrival of Baron E. de Wag- 
ner, the representative of Prussia, they immediately won - him 
to their support. M. Gabriac, the French minister, was so un- 
scrupulous and powerful in support of the church that he was 
recalled and left on the 8th May, 1860. 

In the meantime Zuloaga quarreled with Miramon, and 
demanded his restoration to power, maintaining that the Presi- 
dency had only been delegated to the latter as " President 
Substitute." Miramon refused to resign, and forced Zuloaga to 
accompany him on a campaign against the liberals. The di- 
plomatic corps recognized the claims of Zuloaga, and on the 
11th May they (with the exception of the Papal Nuncio and 
and the Minister of Guatemala) declared that there was no 
government existing in the capital. In August, upon the return 
of Miramon from Ms campaign, he called a junta of nineteen, 
was elected by them President of the Republic, and recognized 
as such by M. Pacheco, envoy from Spain. The reason of this 
recognition was obvious ; it w^as to maintain intact the Mon- 
Almonte treaty which had been negotiated at Paris between 
Spain and the Miramon government in September, 1859, and 
which recognized claims previously ignored by every Mexican 
government. In a protest against this treaty, 30th January, 
1860, the constitutional government called it "unjust in its 
essence, foreign to the usage of nations in the principles it 
4 



50 

established, illegal in the manner in which it was negotiated, 
and contrary to the rights of our country." This infamous 
treaty was afterwards to form a part of the Spanish claim 
against Mexico, at the time of the allied intervention. 

The diplomatic corps were determined apparently to give 
the reactionists the longest possible lease of life. On the 21st 
October, I860, the English Charge withdrew to Jalapa and was 
soon followed by the Prussian Minister. In November the 
French Minister, M. Saligny, arrived, and proceeding imme- 
diately' to Jalapa attempted to effect a compromise between 
the contending parties. Failing in this, he went to the capital, 
20th December, 1862. The diplomatic corps now held a neutral 
position notwithstanding nearly the whole country was in the 
hands of the liberals. They were apparently awaiting the 
progress of events. It was at this time that their favorite, Mi- 
ramon, broke into the British Legation and seized the " British 
bondholders' fund," after he had been completely beaten in a 
battle with the liberals, whose victorious troops entered the 
capital on the 25th December, 1860. 

In a manifesto of the Constitutional Government, issued on 
the 20th January, 1861, upon its restoration to power, there is 
a spirit of reform, of progress, and the embodiment of modern 
civilization, which no liberal and civilized foreign government 
could ignore; for the stability of every modern power must 
depend upon the upholding and the propagation of such prin- 
ciples. This manitesto says : " The social reforms decreed at 
Vera Cruz, and which may be summed up in the nationalization 
of the property held in mortmain, freedom of religion and the 
consequent independence between the civil and spiritual power, 
are sanctioned by public opinion, have been the principal objects 
of the struggle, and in place of being in conflict with the con- 
stitution are only the development of the germ which it con- 
tains." " The government neither can nor could retrace its 
steps in the path of reforms which are so conformable to the 
spirit of the age, and that are the only means of reanimating 
and invigorating a society almost annihilated by inveterate 
abuses, and deep prejudices, and wasted by half a century of 
discord. The emancipation of the civil power, the liberty of 
conscience, and a respect for all beliefs, will assure peace, and 
will bring to the republic new elements of riches and of pros- 
perity." 

They determined to reorganize the judicial powers, to 
establish trial by jury, to have entire freedom of education, to 
establish primary and public schools, endow colleges and public 
institutes of science and progress, and grant complete liberty 
to the press. 



51 

Public improvements and the survey of the public lands 
"were among the measures advocated. These and a fixed fiscal 
estimate were to restore the financial condition of the country 
to a sound condition, while proper taxation, protection to trade 
and foreign commerce, and the abolition of internal customs 
dues, were to aid in the general movement of progress and 
reform. 

The army, instead of being swelled to such a proportion as 
to absorb all the revenues and endanger the stability of the 
government, was to be subordinate to the civil power, and 
limited to the actual necessities of the republic. 

Almost breathless after a fierce struggle of fifty years, 
Mexico had at last brought these high principles to the surface 
of her stormy political sea. 

Upon the success of the liberals, and the establishment 
throughout the whole country of the constitution of 1857, the 
people felt that they had at length freed themselves from the 
great curse which had borne so heavily upon them. It had taken 
fifty years, and there now seemed to open before them that long 
vista of prosperity for which the liberal statesmen had so long 
sighed, and for which they had every reasonable right to hope. 
All that was necessary for Mexico was to settle into the channel 
and follow the liberal principles which she had espoused. True, 
it was a herculean task which her patriots had to uphold. The 
chariot of Mars had so long rolled its wheels over the land that 
almost every element of stability, except the grasp of the clergy 
which still partially lingered, had been crushed out. Morality 
was almost a wreck ; for it had been ground to powder between 
the ills of civil commotion and the corruption of the church. 
The finances of the government were not ; and the liberals, 
poised upon the goal which their heroism had at last won, were 
forced to balance themselves by every means which might 
enable them to maintain their position until the resources of 
the country, trained in peaceful currents, might give them the 
means to restore their finances to a healthful condition, Theu' 
armor, torn, battered, and shattered in the greaves, through the 
sturdy blows which the church power had unceasingly rained 
upon it, needed repair ; but scarcely had they taken breath 
before Europe was upon them, and again, with lance in rest for 
a tilt against the empire, they battle to restore the civilizing 
principles which they have unswervingly upheld, and which 
must finally triumph. 

In the long series of revolutions through which Mexico has 
passed, the evil-minded of both parties — for that every cause 
has its traitors our late struggle with the South well proves — 
were not unmindful of their pockets. The governments, too, 



62 

I 

in order to maintain themselves, had negotiated loans at a 
ruinous discount, and sold valuable privileges existing in the 
country for almost a song. In 1841, General Bustamente 
effected a loan of $1,200,000. He received for it $200,000 
cash, and one million in paper credits of the government, which 
were selling in the market for nine cents on the dollar. So 
hard pressed at one time was the government, that it sold the 
coining privilege of Guanajuato for fourteen years, receiving 
therefor $Y1,000 cash, when they were offered $400,000, if they 
would take it in yearly installments of $25,000 each. The 
" Reactionists " had stripped the country of almost every ele- 
ment of wealth upon which they could lay hands, regardless of 
consequences. They had maintained a perfect system of 
brigandage in every department ; the onerous taxes which they 
had imposed being but the very lightest part of the burden to 
which the people were subjected. In September, 1860, M. Le- 
fevre, a resident of Mexico at the time, relates that " General 
Miramon called together a new assembly of twenty-six capi- 
talists, and demanded of them, according to his invariable 
custom, revolver in hand, the trifle of £100,000 sterling." 
Again, the " defenders of order " determined to seize £152,000 
sterling belonging to British bondholders. This cash was in the 
safes of the British legation, and protected by the British seals. 
General Marquez, charged with the task, in a letter entirely 
unique, demanded that the funds " which might, under existing 
circumstances, run great risks in case of disturbance," should be 
delivered up for safe keeping to the Commissary General. The 
legation refused to deliver it ; and the seals, bearing the arms, 
of England, were broken, and the money removed by the 
church party. Marquez afterwards received the cordon of 
" Commander of the Legion of Honor," probably for commit- 
ting a deed so essential to give the allied intervention a coloring 
of justice. 

The liberal government, required by its position to gain time, 
until, by regenerating the country, they might restore health to 
the finances, was absolutely forced, through inability to comply 
with the treaties which the evil rule of the reactionists had 
foisted upon the country in an unfortunate hour, to decree the 
postponement of the payment of interest on all foreign debts 
for two y-ears. So exhaustive had been the rule of their prede- 
cessors that there was absolutely nothing left with which to 
carry on the government from day to day. Of the revenues 
received upon French imports but eight per cent, were available 
for government use, while upon English imports all but twenty- 
five per cent, had been pledged for payments to foreign bond- 
holders. The act of the suspension of the payment of interest 



53 

-on foreign debts, linked with the mountain of unredressed 
'grievances of the previous years, enabled the French and British 
ministers to come to an open rupture with the government. In 
a correspondence with the latter the Mexican Secretary of State 
said : "So great, indeed, was their respect for these funds that 
they preferred to sacrifice their obligations to Mexicans, to 
trample under foot the most cherished principles of their coun- 
try — nay, even to imprison persons of the highest respectability, 
in order to obtain resources from the- sum paid for their release 
— rather than touch a cent of the assignments destined for the 
diplomatic convention and the London debt." Sir Charles 
Wyke, in his answer, said : " A starNdng man may justify in 
his own eyes the fact of his stealing a loaf on the ground that 
imperious necessity impelled him thereto." The retort of the 
Mexican Minister was apt : " It would be rather that of a 
father overwhelmed with debts, who, with only a small sum at 
his disposal, scarcely sufficient to maintain his children, em- 
ployed it in the purchase of bread instead of the payment of 
his bills." The Mexican government was actually so poor at 
this time that it could not provide their minister to France 
enough money to pay his passage home. 

It appeared that foreign governments, reasoning that nothing 
I)ut anarchy — not great principles — had been established by the 
long and dismal period of revolutionary contests between libe- 
ral and ajmost obsolete ideas, were willing, at the very moment 
when the battle had been finished, the victory won, and a liberal, 
progressive government established over the land which had been 
so long priest-ridden, to press to the wall the liberalists, and 
throw a cloud over the rising sun of Mexican glory. The lib- 
erals, exhausted of treasure, with naught left them but their 
own good swords, and after a sanguinary and terrible struggle 
of fifty years for principles which every civilized nation has 
inscribed in its code of laws, now found themselves likely to be 
assailed by a wave from those very nations which pretended to 
teach them the science of government. It was destined to dash 
upon them, retard their progress and add its desolation to the 
land which Europe had already cursed. 

Meanwhile the clergy were active with their machinations. 
Miramon was busy in Spain, where O'Donnell, the prime min- 
ister, lent a willing ear to the flattering hope that Mexico was 
now ready, like a ripe peach, to drop into the hands of any 
prince whom Spain might feel disposed, by the aid of a little 
force, to place upon the throne of her former viceroy alty. The 
hope was too much in common with the Spanish dream of res- 
tored colonial rule to be treated lightly, and an expedition was 
.already upon the eve of organization for the benefit of the 



54 

Mexican clergy, for the redress of manifold grievances, and for 
the insult to her Minister, SeBor Pacheco, who had been 
expelled from Mexico for meddling in the politics of the 
country. 



PAKT Y. 

Cause of the Alliance between France and England- 
Motives ALLEGED FOE THE INTERVENTION ObJECTS OF SpAIN 

— Plajsts of England — The Austrian Element — The 
TEUMPED-up Financial Claims — Signing of the Teeaty of 
Alliance — Seizure of Veea Ceuz by Spain — Discoueage- 
MENT of the Allies — Teeaty of La Soledad — Demands 
OF THE Allies — They quaeeel — England and Spain 
withdeaw their Forces — Gross Yiolation of the Treaty 
OF La Soledad by Feance — The Chuech party theow off 
the Mask — Defeat of the Feench at Puebla — The ef- 
fect IN Feance — Aerival of General Forey — Siege and 
FALL OF Puebla — The Appointment of Rotables — Ille- 
gal Election of Maximilian to be Emperor — It is Sanc- 
tioned BY A pretended PopULAR YoTE PuPTURE OF THE 

French with the Church party who issue a Protest — 
Mistakes of Napoleon III — The Promised French Evac- 
uation — Position of the United States on the Mexican 
Question. 

We come now to the causes of the union of France and 
England in this expedition, whose inception was Spanish ; and 
although it is a matter which will not admit of a clearly math- 
ematical demonstration, owing to the lack of documents which 
are behind the scenes, we may hope at least to show why France 
deemed it to her interests to establish a throne in Mexico. In 
the instructions to General Forey, 3d of July, 1862, after the 
mask had been thrown off and France had been left alone in 
her pursuit of conquest, the Emperor Napoleon said : " In the 
present state of the civilization of the world the prosperity of 
America is not a matter of indifference to Europe, for it is that 
country which feeds our manufactories and gives an impulse to 
our commerce. We have an interest in the republic of the 
United States being powerful and prosperous, but not that she 
should take possession of the whole of the Gulf of Mexico^ 
thence command the Antilles as well as South America, and be 
the only dispenser of the products of the New World." "^ * 



55 

" We now see how precarious is the lot of a branch of manu- 
facture which is compelled to procure its raw material in a sin- 
gle market — all the vicissitudes of which it has to bear." * * 
" If, on the contrary, Mexico maintains her independence and 
the integrity of her territory ; if a stable government be there 
constituted, with the assistance of France, we shall have restored 
to the Latin race on the other side of the Atlantic all its strength 
and its prestige ; we shall have guaranteed security to our West 
India colonies, and to those of Spain ; we shall have established 
our friendly influence in the center of America, and that influ- 
ence, by creating immense markets for our commerce, will pro- 
cure us the raw materials indispensable for our manufactures." 
* * * " Mexico, thus regenerated, wall always be well- 
disposed towards us, not only out of gratitude, but also because 
her interests will be in accord with ours, and because she 
will fi.nd support in her friendly relations with European 
Powers." 

Here, then, were the true causes of the expedition which, 
condensed, meant the commercial and political aggrandizement 
of France, and the interposition of a barrier to the extension of 
the great Republic. There was, however, one more element all 
powerful with the French Emperor. It was the glory of the 
Catholic faith throughout Christendom, as the champion of 
which France now stands foremost. We cannot forget that 
Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, wanted the Crown of France, 
and th'at a contract was made between him and Pope Zachary, in 
752, whereby Pepin became king, and the Pope was freed from 
Constantinople and the Lombards ; that the next year Pope 
Stephen II. visited France, anointed Pepin with the " holy oil," 
in the monastery of St. Denis, and thus indissolubly linked the 
throne of France to the Yatican. The influence has never 
been lost, and France, by her power, has in latter years, become 
the exponent of the church militant in Europe ; the mantle of 
Spain, as the " Bulwark of Christendom," falling upon her 
shoulders. In the restoration of the Catholic power in Mexico, 
to a healthy condition, we must find one- of the most powerful 
of the causes of the French intervention, and the chair of St. 
Peter propped up, as it is to-day, by French bayonets, is not 
backward in demanding of its faithful adherents the regenera- 
tion of the Mexican church. To-day France has done in Mex- 
ico what M. Billault, in the Corps Legislatif, 7th February, 
1864, said she had done in China : " We have penetrated into 
the heart of China to plant at the same time the symbol of our 
faith, which we protect, and to open a world to our com- 
merce." 

Another powerful reason for the French occupation of Mex- 



56 

ico, is its commanding position, which is salient above all other 
countries, as we have shown in the opening of this paper. We 
may point to the fact that since the rule of the Emperor ISTapo- 
leon III. the policy of France has been to extend in all direc- 
tion her colonial interests, and in common with her great rival, 
England, whose policy she emulates, to gain possession, either 
by force or purchase, of all the prominent and controlling points 
of the globe. At the Isthmus of Suez, in the face of Engineer- 
ing difficulties pronounced by English engineers insurmountable, 
French science cuts through from the Mediterranean to the Red 
Sea, and reconnecting the waters united by Rameses II. more 
than a score of centuries ago, reopens this old. gate to the riches 
of the Indies, and adds one more glory to the greatness of 
France. It is the same with Mexico on the west as with Egypt 
on the east. France seeks the control of both these great com- 
mercial avenues. At the mouth of the Red Sea, another great 
point for the control of that East India route has fallen into her 
possession, while in the Corps Legislatif a French minister 
boasts " that between Singapore and China an im.mense and 
magnificent possession takes under our flag a rapid march to- 
wards a brilliant future." 

The reasons which France gave for the Mexican interven- 
tion were the merest bubbles upon the great ocean of other 
interests which she saw for her future glory, providing her 
efforts were successful, as from the then condition of the great 
Republic she had every reason to believe they would be. M. 
Billault, in the speech quoted above, says of Mexico : " There, 
also, great political vistas are opened to clear-sighted eyes ; di- 
verse interests come in contact, and it is not opportune to neg- 
lect them." 

Pressed powerfully by the emissaries of the clergy to make 
good their cause in M:exico against the liberals, and actuated by 
all the incentives to conquest which we have detailed, France 
was not dilatory in deciding to become an active participant in 
the enterprise. We shall see further on that she could not 
carry out her views in this unless Spain should concede to her 
the foremost position, not only as defender of the faith, but in 
respect to the commercial and colonial policy which so largely 
controlled the expedition. 

The objects which Spain had were, in compliance with the 
wishes of the Mexican church, to establish the old system, and, 
if possible, to restore the lost jewels of the Spanish crown, by 
the creation of a monarchy in Mexico, with the entlironement 
of the Count of Flanders, younger brother of the heir of King 
Leopold of Belgium, who was to espouse a Spanish infanta, and 
thus, as a Madrid ministerial journal proclaimed in December, 



57 

1861 : — " If the throne of Mexico were not to be occupied by 
a Spanish prince, it would at least be pressed by a Spanish 
princess." M. Mon, in 1861, before the date of the allied 
iresitj of intervention, wrote to the Spanish Ambassador at 
Paris : — " The government should not conceal that this may be 
a, suitable occasion for awakening ancient recollections, and 
placing upon the throne of Mexico a prince of the blood of the 
Bourbons more or less intimately united to that house." Soon 
following this (September 10, 1861) came the Spanish invita- 
tion to the allies to join in the intervention. In the unhappy 
revolutionary condition of Spanish America, it has been the 
<lream of Spain to restore her former viceroyal dependencies to 
her crown, or at least, as we see here, erect monarchies under 
the rule of Bourbon princes. Spain has never ceased to hug 
this delusion, and it gave rise to the war which for three years 
she lately waged unsuccessfully against San Domingo, under 
the idea that the erring child was ready to receive again the 
lash and rod which for centm-ies made her horrors a proverb. 
Spain seizes the Chincha Islands, Peru protests, some trouble 
occurs in the premises, and Spain demands $3,000,000 indem- 
nity. Chile refuses to salute her flag and Spain declares war, 
only to show to mankind how weak the quicksilver of the New 
World has made her bones. She takes no lessons of the mtel- 
lectual giant of La Mancha, and proves herself the great Don 
Quixote of the nineteenth century. 

The plans of England were essentially commercial. She 
sought no conquest in the intervention ; the giant has grasped 
at last all the territory that his muscles can defend and now 
asks nothing but peace. The athlete has won his victories, 
established his reputation, and now, in possession of a long list 
of commercial outposts, and a line of island sentinels encircling 
and commanding the world, is quite contented to be peaceful, 
monopolize commerce and manufactures and grow fat — quite 
contented to send a ship or two to Mexico to see that the inter- 
est on the British bonds be paid, and that his commercial rela- 
tions shall remain undistm-bed. She had an interest also in 
preventing Spain from again gaining control over the Spanish 
Americas, whereby the immense commerce of England with 
them might be hampered, as it had been by Spanish policy 
when she held the power there and for two centuries baffled 
English attempts to gain a foothold. In the Spanish Cortes it 
was advocated that England joined solely " to prevent Spain 
from undertaking it alone," Great Britain was not unwilling 
either to plant a barrier, by establishing, through " moral sup- 
port," a stable government in Mexico, which might curb the 
growth of her young offspring, the great Republic, wlio break- 



58 

fasts on Louisiana, lunches on Florida and Texas, dines on 'New 
Mexico, Arizona, and the Pacific slope, and, it is feared, will 
sup upon Mexico. It is true that, as a matter of politeness, the 
United States were invited ; but, as the allies agreed before the 
treaty of October 31, 1861, was signed, " Operations might be 
commenced without awaiting the answer of the American gov- 
ernment," 

The policy of France, as was well known and canvassed in 
Paris before the sailing of the expedition, was the placing of 
the Austrian Archduke MaximiKan upon the throne of Mexico^ 
through the " moral support " of the army. During the month 
of the signing of the treaty of intervention, the French Minis- 
ter of Foreign Affairs, speaking of the dissolution of Mexico^ 
said : — " Such an event cannot be a matter of indifference to 
England ; and the principal means, in our opinion, to prevent 
its accomplishment, would be the establishment in Mexico of a 
regenerative government strong enough to arrest its internal 
dissolution." Then, speaking of the disinterestedness of France, 
he says : " Desirous of respecting the susceptibilities of all par- 
ties, it would see with pleasure the choice of the Mexicans fall 
upon a prince of the house of Austria," M. Thouvenel wrote, 
October 15, 1861, to M, Barrot, French Ambassador at Madrid, 
that, in case of an eventual return of a monarchy in Mexico : 
— " The Emperor, foreseeing such an eventuality, with perfect 
disinterestedness resigned beforehand all candidature for any 
prince of the imperial family ; and he did not doubt that the 
other two governments entertained similar dispositions. Finally, 
that in regard to the choice of a dynasty, in the eventuality in- 
dicated, we had no candidate to propose, but that should the 
fact happen, an Austrian prince would meet with our assent," 
We shall see later how Spain, forced gradually into a secondary 
position, instead of holding to her primary one, yielded to her 
great rival and embarked her forces for home. It is a settled 
fact that France formed her plans for the establishment of a 
monarchy before the expedition was organized, and she fixed 
upon the Archduke as the one whom she would place upon the 
Mexican throne. 

The allies being agreed, it was necessary on the part of 
France to find some good pretext for intervention. The best 
one upon which she could fix was the debts due to her from 
Mexico. But notice the smallness of these. In 1863 M. Jules 
Favre stated before the legislative Assembly that " Mexico was 
our debtor, according to treaty signed, for $750,000. There 
were other claims, but they were conditional. The amount did 
not reach 5,000,000 francs " ($1,000,000). There was also the 
Jecker debt of $15,000,000, which France held in reserve for 



59 

her ultimatum. We shall speak hereafter of the Jecker claim, 
which was one of the most scandalous frauds ever perpetrated. 
A large number of fraudulent Mexican and Spanish claims 
were procured insertion into the " English convention," for 
which Great Britain now urged a settlement. This diplomatic 
convention was for $5,000,000, of which but $266,000 belonged 
to English subjects. 

Added to all the reasons which Western Europe had for the 
intervention, the clergy had brought all their spiritual and tem- 
poral ordnance to bear to effect it. They left no power unem- 
ployed ; even their old champion, Santa Anna, from his place 
of exile, St. Thomas, still exerted his influence to the utmost to 
seat a King upon the throne which the shade of the Monte- 
zumas has cursed for any occupant. He wrote, October 15, 
1861, to Estrada : "What you have to do is to remind the gov- 
ernments near wliich you are accredited of your former 
petitions, insisting especially that Mexico cannot have a lasting 
peace until the disease is radically cured, and the only remedy 
is the substitution of a constitutional empire for that farce 
called a republic. Those nations can select one jointly. Re- 
mind them also that I am now more than ever disposed to carry 
out that idea, and that I will labor without ceasing to effect it." 
Still true to his party, tlie church, he hoped also to effect great 
benefits " by restoring the Catholic religion," 

The pragmatic treaty between the allies was at length signed 
at London, October 31, 1861. Its stipulations were peculiar, 
and showed the jealousy with which the parties watched each 
other. The second article stated that " the high contracting 
parties engage not to seek for themselves, in the employment of 
the coercive measures contemplated by the present convention, 
any acquisition of territory or any special advantage, and not 
to exercise in the internal affairs of Mexico any influence of a 
nature to prejudice the right of the Mexican nation to choose 
and to constitute freely the form of its government." How 
well JN^apoleon III. kept this treaty, to which he solemnly swore, 
the sequel proves. 

The Power which could take the initiative in the movement, 
and which sent the largest force, was naturally the one to direct 
the future policy of the country which Spain and France went 
to conquer. Both of these Powers made undue haste to reach 
the scene of their labors ; so great, indeed, that they neglected 
almost everything that could tend to the success of the exjyedi- 
tion. The allies were to rendezvous at Cuba ; but the Spanish 
contingent sailed before the French and English arrived, seized 
upon the Mexican port of Yera Cruz, and on December 14, 
1861, the Spanish commander issued a proclamation to the 



60 

people of Mexico. It had been quick work, for tlie treaty of 
of London had been signed only forty-four days before, and 
Spain had thus gained a move on France. The allies soon after 
arrived ; the whole expedition numbered in soldiers, sailors and 
marines, about 19,000. Of these the English furnished only 
about TOO marines, France about 2,500 effective soldiers, and 
Spain about 6,000, the balance being sailors. It is a notable 
fact, that the nation whose grievances were greatest, and which 
had the largest money debt due from Mexico, furnished abso- 
lutely no regular forces for the purpose of invasion. It proves 
that Article II., which we have quoted from the treaty of Lon- 
don, was inserted entirely at the dictation of England, and that 
she entered the expedition with the intention, so far as lay in 
her power, to prevent either of her allies from stealing a march 
upon her and affecting her future in the ]^ew World. 

The allies had landed without war equipments suitable to 
the campaign which they were about to undertake ; they were 
unprovided with camp equipage or means of transportation. 
The emissaries of the clergy had represented to them that the 
whole country was ready to throw itself into their arms and ac- 
cept any government which they might dictate; but the mon- 
archical party who were to effect a revolution did nothing ; on 
the contrary, every day the liberal government grew stronger. 
Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, seeing the falsity of the repre- 
sentations of the " reactionists " which had been presented to 
France, wrote to General Prim, in command of the Spanish 
forces, saying : " I have always been disposed to agree with you 
in recognizing the necessity we are under here to avoid embrac- 
ing the cause of the party which composes the minority and 
which has opposed to it the general opinion of the country." 
France had counted upon obtaining supplies and mules from 
the inhabitants, but found that they would not sell them at any 
price. General Uraga, commanding the liberal forces, laid 
waste the country around them, and they found almost the 
whole Mexican people ready to receive them at the point of the 
bayonet. 

The allies were thus subjected to great straits for provisions, 
which, linked to the sickness of the coast and the rapidly ap- 
proaching season of the " vomito," made their cause look most 
dismal. The Spanish force had already two thousand sick in 
hospital, the English one hundred and thirty sick out of seven 
hundred, and the French were in much the same condition. 
They then requested from the very government which they 
came to overthrow, the privilege of encamping their troops 
uponthe high ground inland, where, free from the miasma of 
the tierra caliente, they might open negotiations with a govern- 



61 

ment whose existence they had ignored before their departure 
from Europe. It was a humility before the world which they 
had not anticipated. They had traversed six thousand miles of 
water to find that Mexico had a government ; and that she re- 
quired no other form to preserve peace and maintain the laws 
of the laud. They had in Europe proclaimed that the govern- 
ment of Juarez was without faith, without honor; that no 
treaty could be made with it without guarantees ; that it was a 
perfect farce to treat under any circumstances with such per- 
jurers ; and yet, the very first article of the " Treaty of La 
Soledad," which, after the allied ultimatum had been sent for- 
ward, was the opening of negotiations, and which received the 
signatures of the representatives of the allied Powers, was : — 
First, " Admitting that the constitutional government, which 
at present directs the aifairs of Mexico, has manifested to the 
commissioners of the allied Powers that it has no need what- 
ever of the assistance so kindly offered to the Mexican people, 
as having at its own disposal sufficient elements of force and 
public opinion to maintain itself against all intestine revolt, the 
allies, therefore, deem it their duty to enter upon the way of 
treaties for the purpose of drawing up the claims which they 
have to make in the name of their respective nations." 

In article second the allies protest " that they will attempt 
nothing against the independence, sovereignty and integrity of 
the territory of the republic." Here the allies, then, plainly 
admit that Mexico is perfectly able to manage her own affairs. 
This treaty had arisen from the necessity of an ultimatum to 
the Mexican government which should embody the demands 
of the allies ; but it was a matter of no small difficulty for the 
commissioners to agree upon the amounts to be demanded. It 
was claimed on the part of France that each power had a right 
to fix its own reclamations, regardless of the others. The truth 
is that France and Spain had, in their attempts to overreach 
each other, taken no time to consider the amounts justly their 
due. France, taking care to have her demands cover all con- 
tingencies, fixed her ultimatum at twelve million dollars. The 
immediate execution of the Jecker contract, which had been 
made with the government of Miramon when tottering to its 
fall, was also required. Jecker was a Swiss banker who, after 
passing through twenty years of the vicissitudes of Mexican 
commercial life, during which time he was engaged in many 
doubtful enterprises, at length entered into a contract with the 
government of Miramon to negotiate a loan of $15,000,000, out 
of which, by several very doubtful financiering moves, he 
reaped $14,250,000 in bonds, and Miramon and his church 
party $750,000 cash. ^ 



62 

The demands of the allies amounted, without the Jecker 
claim, to $40,000,000, or four times the yearly revenue of 
Mexico. The parties were surprised at each other's claims ; 
especially did the Spanish and English commissioners demur at 
the pressing of the Jecker fraud into the demand, which would 
swell it to $55,000,000, a sum which they knew it was impos- 
sible for Mexico immediately to pay. They finally were so uncer- 
tain what to require, that they sent forward the ultimatum, which 
was so very vague in its demands that the astute statesmen of Mex- 
ico saw in it the germs of the confusion which was to take place in 
the councils of their invaders, and acted accordingly. Their 
object was to gain time, which was admirably accomplished in 
one of the articles of the " Treaty of La Soledad " above men- 
tioned. All negotiations were there postponed until the 15th 
of April, 1862. 

When the news reached France of the capture of Yera 
Cruz by the Spaniards, and the march which they had stolen 
on the Emperor ISTapoleon III., a reinforcement of four thou- 
sand five hundred men was immediately dispatched to Mexico, 
under command of General Lorencez, a brave and able officer, 
who was, upon his arrival, to assume command of the whole 
French contingent. General Prim, upon the unexpected ap- 
pearance of the French reinforcements, saw Spain forced into 
the secondary position, which crushed all the finely prepared 
theories with which Spain had deluded herself. He therefore 
at once began to oppose objections to the claims which France 
demanded of Mexico, being especially loud in his protests 
against the infamous Jecker claim, to which the minister from 
England was also bitterly opposed. Another very serious cause 
of complaint, and which, under the circumstances, was magni- 
fied into a pretence for the withdrawal of Spain and England 
from the coalition, was the presence in the French camp of Al- 
monte, the " infamous Marquez," and others of the monarchi- 
cal or " reactionary " party, who had, although outlawed, en- 
tered Mexican territory under protection of the French flag, 
and commenced issuing " pronunciamientos " and inflammatory 
appeals to the people after the usual style of inciting a Mexican 
revolution. Miramon had also landed at Vera Cruz, but the 
English threatened to arrest him for his wholesale robbery of 
their Legation, before mentioned, and he was obliged to flee to 
Havana. 

The constitutional government demanded that the traitors 
and outlaws under protection of the French flag should be 
given up or leave the country ; but the French commander re- 
fused so just a demand. He was little inclined to give up the 
leaders of the church party, whose cause his master, the French 



63 

Emperor, had espoused. General Prim and Sir Charles Wjke 
considered that these demands were perfectly just, and in- 
sisted that President Juarez had a right to consider the reten- 
tion of these outlaws as a declaration of war against the govern- 
ment. M. de Saligny protested that General Almonte had the 
confidence of the French government, and that he could not be 
expelled from their camp. The controversy grew warm ; linked 
with the exorbitant exactions of France in the ultimatum, the 
Spanish and English commissioners, foreseeing the result which 
proved them to have been duped from the origin of the expe- 
dition, retired to Vera Cruz and embarked their troops for 
Europe in April, 1862. France was thus left to play out the 
game, in whose primary moves she had been so successful, in 
accordance with the course which had been fixed upon from the 
inception of the enterprise. 

The fourth article of the " Treaty of La Soledad " stipu- 
lated that, " in order that it may not in the most remote de- 
gree be believed that the allies have signed these preliminaries 
in order to obtain the passage of the fortified positions garri- 
soned by the Mexican army, it is stipulated that, in the imfor- 
tunate event of the negotiations being broken off, the forces of 
the allies will retire from the said towns, and will place them- 
selves in the line that is beyond the said fortifications on the 
Yera Cruz side ; Paso Ancho on the Cordova road, and Paso de 
Ovejas on that of Jalapa, being the principal extreme points." 

In .gross violation of the treaty, the French refused to com- 
ply with this article, under plea that the sick in hospital would 
be forced to remain in Orizaba, and there be exposed to danger. 
Totally ignoring all honorable action, they retained possession 
of this powerful stronghold which it might have cost them 
thousands of their best troops to capture, if we may judge from 
the opposition they afterwards encountered in their march to- 
wards the capital. The unhealthiness of the Vera Cruz dis- 
trict, in which, had they returned, their forces might have been 
almost annihilated, was another reason which no doubt caused 
them to break faith with the Mexicans. The plea which they 
urged was the merest subterfuge. Even General Prim pressed 
them to fall back beyond the first lines of fortifications which 
they had passed under solemn treaty, and tlirough the generos- 
ity which the Mexican government evinced in behalf of the 
sanitary condition of the invading force. He assured them 
that the sick would be as well cared for by the Mexicans as they 
would be at any hospital in Paris. All effort was, however, 
useless ; inveighing as the French did against Mexican perfidy, 
their first act upon the soil was as perfidious as any they came 
to avensce. 



64 

The church party, in the French camp, now threw off the 
mask. Almonte immediately issued a pronunciamiento to the 
Mexicans, proclaiming himself Chief of the nation, and gath- 
ered under his standard a few of the predatory bands which, 
under the fostering care of the clergy, had never ceased to 
deluge the country in blood. Almonte issued paper money, 
dictated his dispatches, created and dismissed generals, and 
maintained, under French protection, the complete semblance 
of a government in full operation. The French thus commenced 
to "pacify the country." 

General Lorencez, who had replaced Admiral Jurien in 
command of the French forces, now advanced towards Mexico 
to afford that " moral support " to the Mexicans which they so 
much desired. He anticipated, through the representations of 
the church party, that he had only to march inland to be wel- 
comed as the savior and liberator of the country ; that the peo- 
ple who in one year, 1858, had fought in civil warfare seventy- 
one engagements, out of which eight were pitched battles, would 
rise en masse to welcome a foreign invading force, and that the 
phantom of a constitutional government under Juarez would 
vanish before him. Surely the French Emperor cannot be so 
poor a judge of human nature, or imagine there exists so vile 
a people on the face of this earth that they will not defend 
themselves under any circumstances from foreign invasion ; and 
yet how closely France has hugged this delusion for several 
years past may be seen by the thousands of French troops she 
has buried under the soil of Mexico, and the millions of trea- 
sure she has wasted in the pursuit of an idea which it is hardly 
her destiny to realize. 

We need not detail the defeat which the brave General 
Lorencez received at Puebla on the 5th May, 1862, the heroic 
fortitude with which he sustained his little army in the intrench- 
ments of Orizaba after his retreat from Puebla, and during the 
interval in which he was obliged to await reinforcements from 
France. The French did all that brave soldiers and a good 
general could do with such a force against Mexico united in- 
stead of divided. 

The news of the defeat of Lorencez and the terrible slaughter 
of the French troops before Puebla was a shock which France 
was but poorly prepared to receive. It was suddenly discovered 
that the French troops had something more than a promenade 
to make in Mexico. French honor now came in as one of the 
primary elements of the problem. General Forey was dis- 
patched with large reinforcements, and with orders to assume 
entire command, both political and military, of the expedition. 

Upon the arrival of General Forey at Orizaba, with the 



65 

reinforceraents, he also discovered that he would be long de- 
tained at that point before he. could place his forces in such 
marching order as might be required for the " pacification of 
the country." He issued a proclamation from Orizaba to the 
Mexican people. Said he : " In the name of the Emperor I 
declared to you solemnly what I again repeat to you to-day — 
namely, that the soldiers of France have not come here to im- 
pose upon you a government." * * * " That they have no 
other mission but that of consulting the national wish as to the 
form of government it may desire. What would France ex- 
claim to-day if, against her united people, the nations of Europe 
were to march upon Paris Tvath such a manifesto ? ISTow, 
either General Forey was deceiving the Mexican people or dis- 
obeying his orders, for the Emperor, in his famous letter of 
instructions in July, 1862, wrote : " The demands of our policy, 
the interest of our industry and our commerce all impose upon 
us the duty of marching upon Mexico, there boldly planting our 
flag and establishing perhaps a monarchy, if not incompatible 
with the national sentiment of the country, but at least a gov- 
ernment that will promise some stability." Compare these in- 
structions with the following extract from a letter of the Em- 
peror to General Lorencez, in 1862: "It is contrary to my 
interest, my origin and my principles to impose any kind of 
government whatever on the Mexican people. They may freely 
choose that which suits them best." 

Almost a year after the defeat of Lorencez the French 
forces under Marshal Forey again sat down before Puebla, and 
with forty thousand men, assisted by the renegades and bandits 
who, under Ahnonte and Marquez, added their strength to the 
French troops, commenced a siege which was to take rank in 
heroic defence with Numantia, Saguntium and Saragoza. Gen- 
eral Ortega commanded the city, assisted by able generals and 
able engineers, such as Generals Paz, Colombres and others, to 
whom very much of the credit of the defence belongs. Inch by 
inch the desperate defenders of the city contended with the as- 
sailants ; barricade after barricade sprung up before the French, 
and every foot of ground gained was at the cost of a score of 
brave men ; whole blocks of buildings, with their defenders, 
were undermined and blown into the air. It was only after the 
most desperate onslaught that the assailants could make any 
impression upon the works. For two months the French rained 
an unceasing fire upon the devoted city and its convents, which 
had been turned into forts ; for two months the Mexicans gave 
their foes that " warm welcome" which they had been promised 
by the clergy before they left France. The city at length suc- 
cumbed to the indomitable valor of the " pacificators," and 
5 



66 



Marshal Forey soon after appeared before the capital, and en- 
tering it, took possession June 10, 1863. 

In possession of tlie city, Marshal Forey immediately took 
measures to allow the Mexicans to select the form of govern- 
ment that pleased them. He appointed thirty-five notables, 
twenty-two of whom were former members of the reactionary 
government, and most of them of the junta of Miramon in 
1863 ; all of them, however, of the church party. The nota- 
bles immediately elected a regency of three, called the " Su- 
preme Executive Power," designated to them by General Forey 
as men who would meet his views. These were General Al- 
monte, General Salas, and the Archbishop of Mexico ; they in 
turn elected a new assembly of notables, two hundred and 
fifteen in number. 

The programme being all arranged, the Kegency met on the 
Tth July. The principal mountebanks and jugglers being all 
in their places, up went the curtain and the farce of Maximilian 
I., or the moral pacification of Mexico was displayed before the 
world. The Regency named the notables, and then chose the 
form of government, which was to be an empire. With won- 
derful unanimity they elected the Archduke Maximilian to the 
throne. The notables, all good representatives of the reaction- 
ary party, confirmed the election, and, in a proclamation to the 
Mexican people, stated their reasons for this proceeding : " For 
forty years," said they, " Mexico has been governed by brigands, 
vagabonds and incendiaries." They had a wonderful loss of 
memory at that moment, for they forgot that for nearly the 
whole period it had been their party Mdiich had ruled, and that 
some of the very members who authorized this proclamation 
had committed some of tlie most glaring outrages which have 
blackened Mexican annals. 

Thus the empire, after a terrible struggle, had birth by the 
Caesarian process, and the next act was to otfer to Maximilian 
the crown which the pacified Mexican people so willingly con- 
ferred. For this purpose a commission was dispatched to Aus- 
tria ; but the farce of allowing the Mexican people to select 
their own form of government had been so boldly and yet so 
stupidly enacted that, in the face of the public opinion of the 
world, "Maximilian could not accept the crown thus offered to 
him, unless, to smooth over this most glaring outrage of the 
nineteenth century, a vote — a popular vote — might be taken, 
whereby it might be demonstrated to the nations that Mexico 
was indeed pacified ; that it had welcomed its invaders ; that 
there had in fact been no siege of Puebla, no bloody defeats and 
eq[ually bloody victories; that all the heroes who fought under 
the constitutional banner of Juarez were bandits and outlaws, 



07 

anri all CJliriHliariH, Hnc\i uh Mii-arnon, Ahnonlc, M;u-ij(h;/., Mi 
randa, M(;jia, and (;tl)<;r " coiiKcrvativcH," wlio li;i,(l Tor lilly 
jcarH cauH(;d thr; <;ount,ry t,(> mcl in an ini(>xir;af,i(>;i <»)' |>lo<><L 
were the only pr;ople who wen; iin<;1,iin;<J wilh civili/al.iori, ana 
who were in'J(-ed f.fie lordn of tjie Hoil ; all who, wit.li " lil»<;rl,y 
and reform " on tJioir hannpr:-;, and Vv'ho would ikA. vot,(; for t,li»i 
new regmi/i^ bcin^^ ont.eaHt,:-;, nn worthy of f^on ,)dc,r;),tion, i:y.<:<:\>i 
throu^'h tiie eoriHlant; and ardnouH ornploy of fro/fj forty to lilly 
thou.sand I'rerich troop.-: 1,o ke(;|> tli(;rn i'r<>tti overturn if ij.^ th<; 
peaceable and unoff'endinj.'' eler^'y vyho r(;j<reHefjted the eaui'.e <>f 
'^'law and ord(;r."' 

Maximilian -aid to tiio ';ommj;vHionon',, on tho ;;d of OfJo 



ber, 1863, "My aeeeptanee of tlie <iU'<;f<:(i throno munf, tfirireforc 
(}fi])('ji(] upon the roHiih of tlx; vote of the whole eoi/ntry." HtJt 
the only way to obtain thin vote waH to rfiake <-.v<:ry Mr-.xir-.an 



citizen deposit hi:-; suffrage under tfjr; gleam of a \' n;iK',\i l>ayo- 
net. It was r(-Mh}Ay calculated by M. MaJaspIne, editor of 
" L'Opinion JVationale," tliat when General i'hy.h'nn; wan in- 
structed in A ugust t^-; takf; the vot<^;. seven-^jiglitf/s of tlie popula- 
tion of Mexico and twenty-nine th)rf;if;t}(« of Ite tAsn'tU/ry w^im U^- 
yond the lines of VmucL proU-M'ion.^ while, the t/jrntory wfn'cij 
they occupied wa?* overrun by Bf;venty-two h'x^tile gueri Jfa baf<d«, 
averaging from seventy to tnrMj \uifi(\r<-A rat-jt ej4/;h, Gen/;ral- 
Baz!d,ine thus found it rn^-j^r^rMj to organize hi-v forc^f/, int/^ }■/<;[>- 
arate divisions, and make what has whiWy \>(-A'At aoMf-A '' it,n 
election e^jring tour iri fkvor of i^nrtfj-, }^\i).x.'u(i\\\h.u.''' The, eSi-Ay 
tion wa« hehT, theduliefet V^rain rn^y imagine how. T\ihcj>un\,ry 
gave it« popular vot*; for the Au.strian archduke, who'«oon aft/cjf 
feati.siied with the result, fn^/'MiAfA tf/e throua of pficMuA Mex- 
ico. Thns the eaase for which the >\fexican p^'Z/p)^; h^J for a 
half c<5!ntTiry hattUA and bravely won v/aft throv/n ba/;k year^i 
into the past. The MexicaTj (Unx^rt:^. \>r<fiji^i(A a^ainsit th/j 
glj&iring outrage which i'(mt(A upon t)»eni a rnonarchicaJ gowjrn- 
ment \\iT(mf^U the aid f/f fifty tnoosiand bayon^;fef. 

France fiad at UiUf^h rufa/i-hicA a rx/int v/heroit v/a» m^j*;*5^«try 
to adopt a policy of (fovfirmiuiut stjitj^ibJe to thft <^>Mntry and if^ 
future development; th/^y analysed and found the principle:* of 
the part)' whoM; caus^f;; they had t^phtv^A t//taJly mc/im^M'ihSa 
with the wantH of Mexi^^^, and in conformity v/ith their ^/>n;>;iV/- 
ericy of acti/^n throughout the invasion, they nov/ ':«;iy>u>/j^i th<; 
principles of the very party which h^i U;!':^j >/> yAmy hsitth'ng 
to hold their conntry int^^. Gen/fa'al h'^yj&Uih('Mmfii/> an o|^^n 
rnpttwe ^-s-ith the church iijurty. v/hich \iiif\J[>(^,rti.y(A thh <'/,ttutrf 
into the hands of France. Thair mymsf^,, timr guilty U'*\t*^^ 
had borne their legitimate fmits : th*; dieargy had ezpf^c^/'A that 
iprfjgKSa would be turned bar;k upon itgel^ an4 th^s^ ti^? oJdgyj>- 



68 

tem would be established, whereby the church might usurp all- 
power, all wealth, and all emolumeuts. The French com- 
mander, with a keen insight into the troubles which environed 
the position, was forced, by maintaining the policy of the liberals, 
who had sequestrated the church property, to refuse its restora- 
tion to the clergy. Thus the invaders came to an open rupture 
with the bishops, and virtually acknowledged the justness of 
the cause for which the constitutionalists were battling. The 
archbishop of Mexico was removed from the regency to which 
Marshal Forey had appointed him. After some correspondence 
between the archbishop and General Bazaine, the prelates of 
Mexico issued a joint protest, which is in every view a remark- 
able document. Opening with a reproach to the French for' 
having betraved their holy Catholic faith, which the Emperor 
Napoleon III. had promised them should be restored in all its 
former rights and privileges, they protest at the treatment it 
has received, and state that it suifers " a compulsion in its most 
holy rights and in its canonical Kberties entirely equal to that 
which it suffered when the authorities emanating from the 
Plan of Ayutla (the liberals) were in power." " Then," said 
they, " the government frankly manifested its principles ; it ap- 
peared to the view of this Catholic people in the character of 
an opposition armed with a power against religion and the 
church ; and the latter, as a victim immolated by the govern- 
ment, defended itself heroically, suffering the consequences of 
a terrible persecution, and perishing nobly for the holy cause of 
justice. * * * Then the prelates lea^dng our 

country, carried with them the hope that the first political 
change which should take place would bring with it a complete 
moral and religious restoration. To-day, returning after such a 
change, to be present at the immolation of all our principles^ 
the consummation of the ruin of the church, we have received 
a blow such as is only received at the death of all human hope. 
Then the church had only one enemy — the government that 
persecuted it. To-day it has two — that same government which 
still lives in the country, which still has resources of its own ; 
an army that contends hand to hand for every foot of ground, 
and that counts upon the aid of its principles and interests in 
the enemy's camp, and in the capital ; an enemy whose first 
occupation it is to carry into effect the destructive plans of its 
opponents, in religious and moral aft'airs. * -x- * 

Then we received a blow from the hands of an open enemy ; to- 
day we are attacked by those who call themselves friends of 
the church and protectors of its liberties. * * * 
Then we could publish our protests and our pastorals ; to-day 
the press is bound in such a manner that it is only open to those 



69 

who favor the intervention." The whole document is a wail of 
woe at the betrayal of their hopes by those into whose hands 
they had betrayed their country. Seldom in history can we find a 
document so replete with the exasperation of disappointment. 
They acknowledge, too, finally, that the wars waged by the lib- 
erals are only against the opposition of the church to " liberty 
and reform." The clergy had thrown their bone before the 
lions of Europe, and now they were doomed to see it despoiled 
of its meat as strip after strip it was wrenched off. They had invi- 
ted the invader to oppose the constitutional reforms of the lib- 
erals, only to see them, when firmly in power, espouse those re- 
forms. It was a case of the most glaring inconsistency on all 
sides. France had proclaimed that she espoused the cause of 
the " reactionists ;" she no sooner reached the capital than she 
overturned the cause she had espoused, and espoused the cause 
she had overturned, while at the same moment, with 50,000 
troops, she battled against the brave defenders of these very 
principles which she now inscribed upon the code of Mexico. 
It was a bold proof that it was might not right which dictated 
the invasion, and that the ruler of France and his advisers were ' 
either in a most lamentable state of ignorance in reference to 
the history and political condition of the country, or else they 
•warred for an idea, and chose to waste some of the best blood 
of France upon a soil which could }deld them no return for the 
prodigal outlay, either in honor, justice, glory or wealth, but 
wliich might fix an indelible stain upon that glorious escutcheon 
which is almost as much the pride of the United States as of 
France. 

On the 18th October, 1864, the Eoman Pontiff addressed a 
letter to Maximilian, urging him to agree with the Mexican 
clergy ; but Maximilian, in" his instructions to his Minister of 
Justice, December 2Tth, 1864, totally disregards it, proposing 
on the contrary to declare religious tolerance, and confirm the 
reform laws "^of Juarez. This was followed on the 26th 
February, 1865, by a decree confirming these instructions ; the 
protests of the clergy being useless. These measures had the 
effect upon the Mexican mind to bind them more firmly to the 
constitution of 1857, and to support the liberals upholding it, 
who were thus by their very invaders adjudged to be fighting 
for the right. 

But Maximilian is enthroned, and we find it is necessary 
for France to retain 50,000 troops to sustain him where the 
suffi-ages of the people have placed him. It has now become a 
matter of pride to the French ruler to at least, if he cannot 
consolidate the monarchy which his "moral pacification" 
■scheme has erected, to continue the farce with the hope that 



70 

some lucky turn of fortune may enable him to reap the honors 
of a drawn game, where the liberals play as well with their 
knights and pawns as JN^apoleon with his king and bishops. 

i^apoleon III. made a great mistake in the character of the 
people whose territory he invaded. He should have taken a 
lesson from J^apoleon I., whose genius was not sufficient to m- 
pose upon Spain a government with King Joseph at its head. 
The invasion of Spain by the great JSTapoleon at the opening 
of this centmy, was wonderfully similar in all its phases to the 
invasion of Mexico by his nephew in 1862 ; the same appoint- 
ment of notables, and the same farce of imposing a foreign 
prince upon the people. The period of occupation of the coun- 
tries will doubtless correspond very nearly. Said Talleyrand to 
the great Emperor, " Your Majesty will never hear the last shot 
fired in a war with a people who have fought eight hundred 
years with the Moors." Mexico, from the hearts of the liberals^ 
echoes the same sentiment in reference to its own soil. The 
French monarch has forgotten that when France invaded the 
Peninsula Spain had but eleven million inhabitants, that she 
was in immediate contact with France, which might easily sup- 
ply her invading forces wath means to prosecute the war, or to 
rapidly reinforce any threatened point, and that, notwithstand- 
ing she poured some of her largest veteran armies into Spain, 
she could not conquer her. If France thus failed to conquer a 
kingdom_ lying at her very door, how could she hope to subdue 
a republic six thousand miles distant, with a territory nearly . 
four and one-half times as large, and which contains eight mil- 
lions of people, imited in a common cause against her, and 
possessing a country eminently adapted to the partisan style 
of warfare which so harassed and cut up the troops of France 
in the Peninsula? In topographical features which might en- 
able partisan bands to maintain a destructive warfare, Mexico 
is eminently like Spain. Her mountain ridges, her waterless 
deserts, her fastnesses, her numerous large towns and cen- 
ters of population — which cannot all be held at once by an in- 
vading force — render her capable of a brilliant defence — and 
capable, too, to work out her own salvation against any num- 
ber of troops which Napoleon may be able to bring against 
her in the present political condition of Europe. 

« We believe that all that France ever planned in reference 
to the future development of Mexico will be realized, but not 
through the influence of any invading Power ; for, to liold and 
direct the energies, of Mexico in a monarchical channel, you 
must change the political condition of the United States, and 
also its form of government. It would take a standing army of 
one hundred thousand foreign troops in Mexico to crush out"the 



71 

leaven of dissensions which would constantly impregnate the 
people from contact with us ; and, as we are ceaselessly advanc- 
ing westward with our civilization, and building up powerful 
States in our march, the effort to establish upon our frontiers a 
monarchy, under the shadow of any European flag, must, by 
the very abrasion of progressive ideas, fall in its own tracks, 
which denote a backward instead of an advancing pace in the 
order of the world's march westward. 

We believe that there is a great law regulating the progress 
of the human race, and that, like the spheres which whirl 
round it, it has its orbit of revolution. May not its constant 
march westward gather to its folds an ever increasing civiliza- 
tion, as its resistless activity develops and calls forth a steady 
growth of brain force 'i Does not this advance of the human 
element, forcing before it the great wave of intellectual im- 
provement, indicate that in future ages, when in its course it has 
swept across the Pacific and impinged upon the eastern Asiatic 
border, that the worn-out nationalities there found must move 
westward towards Europe — westward, westward, until, in the 
ceaseless revolution, they meet our American nationalities — 
then as dead as Asia is to-day — and, with a civilization and im- 
provement which will have gained immensely in its revolution 
of the world, force us in our turn before its irresistible onward 
march? The effects of such invasions as that of France in 
Mexico may impede, but scarcely exert a perceptible influence 
npon, the com."se of the race. 

In the French expedition the French Emperor has played 
one of those far-reaching games so characteristic of him. A 
man who could reach the throne of France as he did must be 
blessed with a wonderfully good fortune, backed by a brain that 
has a deep insight into the fortuitous phases of any problem 
which may interest him ; but in this Mexican problem he made 
a very excusable mistake, which altered its conditions entirely ; 
this was, the predetermined result which, in common with 
Europe, he aflSxed to our civil war. It was, from the very out- 
break of the rebellion, accepted as a foregone conclusion that 
the United States were divided never more to be united. Rea- 
soning from all precedent, they had every right to draw this 
conclusion. It was supposed that the South, following the ten- 
dency of the institutions which existed there in 1860, would 
naturally gather the dominant classes into a powerful aristo- 
cratic faction, which, in consonance with their education and 
natural tendencies, would form a limited monarchical govern- 
ment. It could not have been entirely outside of the vista of 
Napoleon III. that in snch an event the South might have found 
it to her advantage to link herself to Maximilian, and form with 
Mexico a great empire, of which the latter country would have 



72 

been a dependency. France conld then have more than enjoyed 
the reality of one of her dreams in reference to her Mexican 
conquest — not only the obtaining of cotton for herself, but al- 
most its entire monopoly. It was also a very wise plan during 
our great contest to be within easy reach at the bursting of the 
Western stars. There were mighty and valuable fragments to 
be gathered up in such an event. They could not see the result 
through the convex achromatic lenses of liberty, in the nine- 
teenth century ; but chose rather to look at the movement 
through the concave goggles which monarchical Europe puts 
on whenever she looks at anything republican in the Old or 
New World. 

It is worthy of consideration that, in April, 1861, the fii'st 
gun thundered against Fort Sumter ; in June the French le- 
gation pushed the liberal Mexican government to the wall ; in 
October the allied treaty of intervention was signed ; and, in 
the December following, Yera Cruz was occupied by a part of 
the allied force. 

We are officially informed that the French troops will all 
be removed from the Mexican soil by N^ovember, 1867 ; "the 
first being intended to depart in November, 1866." There is 
an immensity between intention- and action. We do believe 
that the French troops will be withdrawn, providing there are 
no further troubles in the United States before the time fixed ; 
for the French people are thoroughly disgusted with this Mexi- 
can expedition, which draws so heavily both upon their pockets 
and their honor. There are, however, elements in the problem 
which place the Emperor JSTapoleon in a most embarrassing 
position — the honor of France and the prestige of his constant 
successes, which, if here broken, will cut loose the ties which 
have bouLnd his name with so much firmness to that country. 
The French people have long been dazzled with the bright sun 
of the house of Bonaparte ; once let them clear their eyes of 
this blindness, and there is little doubt what direction the er- 
ratic and highly organized brain of France would take. Heaven 
was in a prodigal mood when it shaped French intellect ; and 
if in 1789 it surged in one wild wave beyond the level which 
liberty should occupy, it did no more than other nations have 
done before it ; the reflux naturally brought back monarchy, 
but the tide vibrates still in its course to a proper equilibrium. 

The withdrawal of the French troops does not necessarily 
involve the withdrawal of the French population in Mexico. 
The French troops, if natm-alized there, may become Mexican 
troops under the banner of Maximilian. The time also of many 
of the French regiments may expire before November, 1867, 
and it is not a matter of compulsion that they should return 
home. Any foreigner may in Mexico to-day, or next year, en- 



7-6 

list under tlie Mexican flag of Maximilian ; and although he 
might have an army of thirty to forty thousand Frenchmen in 
his service, there might not be a single one of its soldiers borne 
upon the military roll of France. We believe, therefore, that 
whatever troops are withdrawn will be very few, and only those 
who cannot be persuaded to remain in the service of Maximilian. 
This is something to which we could not take exception, for 
France could justly say she no longer held a direct interest in 
the expedition, however large a quantity of funds she might 
furnish to support the bogus monarchy against the stalwart 
blows of the heroic liberals. 

France labors under another difficulty : there is no reason- 
able course which she can pursue to obtain indemnity for the 
immense outlays which she has made in this expedition. She 
has, as it were, with an invading army, proclaimed Maximilian 
Emperor of Mexico ; but he, never having been in possession of 
a square foot of ground which French troops have not for the 
moment occupied, has been unable to exercise his so-called 
function unless guarded by the bayonets which not only pro- 
tect, but think and dictate his policy, making him the most 
perfect android of this century. "What right has he to acknowl- 
edge a debt of 270,000,000 francs on the part of Mexico to 
France, or yet to negotiate a Mexican loan, as has been done on 
the French Bourse ? Being a mere puppet in the hands of the 
military power, he is, as it were, an officer of the invading force, 
who, within a mobilized encampment, with guns shotted and 
troops ready to spring to arms at the sound of the " long roll," 
signs a treaty and binds the country he invades to a course of 
action which the real government cannot, for a moment, sanc- 
tion. Deny the existence of the liberal government all they 
may, the fact that fifty thousand French troops, with all their 
splendid discipline, war material, and equipment, cannot, or do 
not, to-day, hold one-third of the country against the half- 
starved and poorly supplied patriots opposed to them, is the 
most tangible and powerful recognition that can be granted 
that there is a force superior to their own, which, if the French 
Foreign Minister does not recognize, the Treasury of France 
does, and that, too, every day, with immense and constantly 
increasing additions to the debit side of the account, while the 
credit side is as blank as the soul which gave the expedition 
birth. The truth is, France sends an expedition to Mexico, sets 
up her android upon what she classifies as a throne, writes out 
her bill of indemnity, orders it to be signed, and lo ! Mexico 
owes France at least $200,000,000. 

If France evacuates Mexico and Maximilian follows, with 
whom can Napoleon treat ? The allies acknowledged the exist- 
ence of the liberal scovernment bv the treaty of La Soled ad, 



74- . 

when they first entered the country; and, as we have said, fifty 
thousand troops have recognized it ever since; but if, by a 
treaty on any subject, they again recognize that government 
they have so constantly ignored, it will be a virtual acknowl- 
edgment that they have never, in truth, been able to foist upon 
the country their bogus monarchy, and therefore its acts must 
fall with it, including the debts which have been contracted in 
the attempt to maintain it upon such unpromising soil. In 
truth the constitutional government has ever been since the 
French invasion the real government, and never has there been 
at any moment one-third of the country under the shadow of 
foreign bayonets. 

The Emperor l^apoleon is unfortunately bound, to a certain 
degree, to protect the prince of Austria, 'who was induced to 
place himself in so doubtful a position ; the honor of France is 
here also at stake. In a discussion in the French Chambers, in 
January, 1864, M. Thiers boldly stated, that " when a prince is 
taken from one of the greatest reigning families of Europe, when 
that family is asked for a prince to be delivered up to the haz- 
ards of those civil wars so frequent in Mexico, to pretend that 
there is no obligation contracted towards him and his, is to ad- 
vance a theory not very honorable to France." France, then, 
is assailed by a double dishonor. If she withdraws from Mexico 
and _abandons Maximilian to his fate, she acknowledges her 
Mexican expedition a complete failure, and sinks much glory, 
much treasure, and much prestige on this side of the Atlantic, 
while, on the other side, it is equivalent to almost open war 
with Austria. French treasure and Austrian troops natm-ally 
become the next expedient. When that policy fails, will not a 
European war be necessary to give employment to the French 
mind and gloss over the Mexican failure ? It is far from im- 
probable that the reaction of the French Mexican scheme may 
cause Europe some trouble, and may lead to complications not 
to be measured by words, but by swords. 

In our present condition in the United States, the result of 
four years of civil strife and terrible carnage, we are naturaUy 
left in a position where the elements are still simmering under 
the latent heat which produced the great rebellion. Aside from 
our abstract views of foreign interference in the governments of 
our Western World, we have a home interest to look to, which 
is not among the least important. All unsettled as we are, and 
seeking, as yet, to mingle the States into a more homogeneous 
nationality, the presence of a foreign monarchical element upon 
our southwestern frontier is a constant source, if not of alarm, 
at least of suspicion, which calls our earnest attention to its re- 
moval at the earliest moment. We do not want a war with 
France ; we are too closely bound in the ties which were woven 



75 

in onr War of Independence to wisti to live in other than the 
most amicable relations with her ; but it is the feeling of the 
whole nation that this French-Mexican scheme is a constant 
threat against om* people, which, if long continued, can bat ripen 
into bitter fruit and destroy a friendship which we highly prize 
so long as we can enjoy it with honor. We feel that the time 
set for the withdrawal of the French forces is too distant, and 
that it is fixed more with reference to the hope that some lucky 
tmm of events in the United States may leave the Mexican ex- 
pedition undistm'bed, than it is with a view to an abandonment 
of the Mexican scheme of empire. We hazard little in predict- 
ing that the Mexican question has scarcely yet reached its 
secondary phase. 

Notwithstanding cyax warning to Austria not to embark 
troops to replace those of France in Mexico, reliable news 
reaches us that the fii'st shipment of such troops has ah-eady 
taken place. There is, moreover, no law which prevents Ger- 
mans from emi^'ating where they please ; and there is no law 
which prevents France and Austi-ia fr-om supplying Maximilian 
with all the material of war he inay demand. The truth is 
that the liberals, unless they receive assistance, must depend 
upon theii' own good swords for some time yet. It is but justice, 
however, that they should receive assistance, and that, too, from 
om* Government. We have long enough nm^sed the selfish 
policy of non-intervention in the affairs of the Spanish- American 
Republics ; long enough seen them browbeaten and plundered 
by monarchical Em^ope, which has taken advantage of our self- 
ishness in forcing all the struggling republics to the south of 
us from enjoying any ray of light from us excepting that which 
has given them their revolutionary impetus. Sisters in a com- 
mon cause, we have acted most unkindly towards them, and the 
results we every day witness in such acts as the invasion of 
Mexico, and the bullying of the whole Pacific coast by Spain, 
which, the news just reaches us, has added the appendix to the 
long list of horrors which, through her hands, have cm-sed 
Spanish- America, by the disgraceful bombardment of Yal- 
paraiso. Surely we lack generosity, sui-ely we are without 
common humanity even, if we permit these constant and glar- 
ing outrages upon a people who are struggling to raise their 
heads above the inherited curses of Europe. Even in a selfish 
point of view the benefits which we might reap in throwing a 
protecting influence over Spanish- America would more than 
repay all warfare which we might have to wage on their ac- 
count : for. once be it known that we stood as the champion of 
justice between them and the Em-opean nations, there would be 
no causes given for any active interference. The nation that 
lives entirely for itself can make but a poor mark in the history 



76 

of the world, and tlie jingle of its money bags will scarcelj throw 
its echoes so far into the future as would the broad policy of 
protection to human progress. 

France recognizes the government of Maximilian as the 
legitimate ruling power of Mexico ; we recognize that of the 
liberals, under Juarez. France is not making war against 
Mexico, but is furnishing troops to what she calls the legitimate 
government, for a stipulated price according to a written con- 
tract. ]^ow, if France has the right to furnish the government 
which she recognizes with mercenary troops and money to 
carry on the war — and this right is recognized in Europe by 
other governments — why have we not a similar legitimate right 
to furnish war materiel and cash to the government which we 
recognize ? The liberals are not in want of men. They could 
to-day raise an army of three hundred thousand had they the 
naeans for supplying it with munitions of war. They want 
money, and we as a people would only be doing them and their 
cause simple justice were we to furnish it to them in whatever 
quantities may be required. We do not advocate this course 
that we may gain any foothold in the JSTorthern provinces of 
Mexico, for we have quite territory enough to suit the mass of 
the American people ; although there be many who have made 
large investments in Sonora with the hope that the schemes of 
President Buchanan, in 1859, might redound to the advantage 
of those who were in the secret. These men are now willing 
to argue for any government which promises stability, without 
reference to its principles. We believe, however, that their 
only hope of stability in the N^orthern provinces, unless they 
are annexed to the IJnited States, is in the liberal government, 
for they will assuredly be the battle ground of the contending 
parties until Maximilian is driven from the country. 

The present condition of Mexico is scarcely changed from 
what it was at the first occupation of the French troops and 
the crowning of Maximilian. The Emperor can scarcely travel 
five miles in any direction without a large escort, as a protec- 
tion against the guerrilla bands, which keep the foreign troops 
constantly employed, even in the most pacified districts. Of 
the war in the Northern provinces, we hear the most conflicting 
accounts ; but judging even from those most in favor of the 
Imperialists, they are waging an exhaustive warfare against the 
large and constantly increasing forces of the liberals, who ap- 
pear to be rapidly gaining ground. 

The Pall Mall Gazette of March 9, 1865, says :— " It looks 
as if we might hope for peace and civilization when there are 
no more Mexicans." Mexico had her dawn of civilization and 
peace at the very moment that France invaded her soil in 1862, 
and the true hope for lier is when there are no more foreign 



77 

bayonets upon her soil to thrust her back into the darkness from 
which she had just emerged. From calculations made from 
official dispatches, published in the Mexican imperial journals, 
it appears that there took place, during the year 1866, three 
hundred and twenty -two encounters of arms, or about on an 
average, a battle or a skirmish for every day in the year. Is 
Mexico under control of Maximilian or the liberalists? 

The war which has been waged by the French troops is in 
no manner superior in character to that civil warfare which 
was in Europe so much condemned before the landing of a 
foreign force. The mercenaries of Maximilian have, if we may 
believe all accounts, been as rigorously cruel in their treatment 
of the Mexicans opposed to them as ever England was in the 
treatment of the Sepoy troops during the East India rebellion. 
The barbarous order of Maximilian, in October, 1865, to mer- 
cilessly shoot down all liberals found under arms shows not 
only how hard the imperial forces have been pressed, but also 
the sanguinary character of the struggle which they are forced 
to maintain to preserve even a show of European-reflected roy- 
alty upon the soil w^hich had been so dishonorably usm-ped. 
The liberals are, however, fast effecting the recovery of the 
country. This is shown by the fact that the battles are con- 
stantly increasing in number, and that where there was one 
battle in the opening of 1865, there are now two. No quarter 
has been the rule of warfare, and the result has been a terrible 
loss of life on both sides. The desperate resolve of the Mexi- 
cans to free their soil from the invader makes the task of the 
latter to pacify the country alinost a hopeless one, while the 
"moral support" which the Emperor Napoleon furnishes to 
the government he has so generously permitted the Mexican 
people to unanimously choose, is fast losing ground before the 
stm-dy blow^s of a people who prefer the enshrinement of a 
different kind of morality upon their political altars. 

From reliable information the imperial treasury of Max- 
imilian is almost as hard pushed for funds as was that of the 
liberals when the invaders first landed. It appears that they 
have already been obliged to resort to that plan to which their 
predecessors in power have been forced before them — the sell- 
ing of the orders of the Minister of Finance on the Custom 
Houses at a discount — to obtain means to meet the demands on 
the Treasury. There is but one hope. Maximilian again turns 
his eyes towards Napoleon, and Napoleon towards the French 
people. Will the latter, already depleted in purse by this heavy 
drain in support of an idea, again respond, and aid the Mexican 
Imperialists in the formation of a foreign legion with which to 
continue their policy of Mexican pacification ? 



78 



SUPPLEMENT. 

Successes of the Liberals — Maximilian grossly Deceived — 

FiNAJSrCIAL CONDITION OF THE CoUNTRY ChXIROH PaBTY 

WITH Santa Anna again in the Field — Effects of the 
Invasion — Dispute about the Presidency — Grant of 
Extraordinary Powers to Juarez — Mexico fights the 
Republican Battle for the whole Continent — Con- 
cluding Remarks. 

The late mformation from Mexico informs us that the so- 
called empire is tottering to its fall ; and yet, we believe that 
efforts will be made to maintain it in the face of every obstacle ; • 
the liberals are, however, overrunning the whole country, and 
the strong strategic positions of the various States are rapidly 
falling into their hands. Were the Emperor Napoleon famed 
for his honor, we might anticipate some new move in favor of 
the unfortunate prince Maximilian, to whom he has presented 
a " sacred white elephant ;" but we are too well instructed in 
his history to believe that the man who could approve of per- 
fidy in the first act at La Soledad, can blush at the desertion of 
the archduke in the present condition of the tragic-comedy called 
the Empire. As we have before remarked, European complica- 
tions may be necessary to gloss over the failure ; and there is 
more of Mexico to-day in the present hostile attitude of the 
great powers of Europe, than is seen upon the surface. 

The archduke Maximilian was grossly deceived by all par- 
ties, as to the condition of Mexico, before he crossed the Atlan- 
tic. The misrepresentations of the interested European powers 
were only made patent to him when he found that the part 
of Mexico which he governed was only ruled under the gleam 
of foreign bayonets : and yet it appears that, in the treaty 
which he made wi h Napoleon III., for. the retention of a whole 
corps cf armee^ he was somewhat doubtful of the truth of the 
picture of Mexico which the clergy photographed upon the 
the monarchical retina of Europe. Perhaps he even dis- 
trusted the truthfulness of Santa Anna's words, who, on the 
22d December, 1883, wrote to him — " I may also assure your 
Imperial Highness that the voice raised in Mexico to proclaim 
your respected name is not the voice of a party. An immense 
majority of the nation desire to restore the empire of the Mon- 
tezumas with your Imperial Highness at its head, believing it 
to be the only remedy for existing ills, and the ultimate anchor 
of its hopes." 



79 ■ 

The financial condition of the so-called empire is to-day 
worse than that of any party which ever occupied the capital 
during any revolutionary overturning in the country. The so- 
called empire has attempted to load Mexico with a mountain of 
debt, many times exceeding that which the nation owed in 
1861 ; while the immense increase of expenditures for this 
bastard government compares very unfavorably with the more 
democratic outlays for the support of republican institutions. 

Up to January 1st, 1866, official data, published at Wash- 
ington, shows : 

First. That France has charged to Mexico for 

expenses of invasion to July 1st, 1864. . $50,000,000 
Second. That loans have been negotiated for 

Maximilian in France, amounting to . . . 150,000,000 
Third. That the claims of France, admitted by 

the constitutional government before 

the intervention, were only 2,859,917 

Fourth. That the French claims recognized by 

Maximilian already amount to 192,962,962 



We have also the following 

COMPAKISONS. 

Foreign debt, as attempted to be recognized by 

Maximilian $271,735,605 

Foreign debt, as recognized by the constitutional 

government 81,632,560 

Attempted increase by Maximilian $190,103,045 

Annual interest required to be paid by Maxi- 
milian $12,966,204 

Annual interest under the government of the 

Eepublic 2,760,022 



Attempted increase by Maximilian $10,206,182 

Annual expenditures under Maximilian. ..... $49,929,326 

Annual expenditm-es, fixed by the national 

Congress, under the Republic. 11,087,440 

Aimual increase under Maximilian $38,841,886 

Annual salary of Maximilian, so called Em- 
peror of Mexico $1,500,000 

Annual salary of the President of the Eepublic. 30,000 



■ 80 

It will be liere noticed that the interest alone^ which is re- 
quired to be paid by Maximilian, exceeds by almost two Tnillion^ 
of dollars the total anmial expenditures sanctioned hy the con- 
stitutional Congress^ hefore the invasion. 

The result of these considerations shows with severity 
against the attempted foisting of a monarchical government 
upon the country. To make this indebtedness good, there is a 
combination of a powerful moneyed interest to uphold the em- 
pire, upon which they put almost their total dependence for 
future payment of claims. This moneyed interest is very nearly 
equal in amount, although not equal in power, to that which 
the church held, while for so many years it contested the rights 
of cash against high political principles. In support of the 
empire there is also a considerable party of Mexicans who em- 
barked their fortunes in it ; others who have received titles and 
distinctions under it ; others who have grown rich from its con- 
tracts ; others who have entered the country from foreign lands 
and accepted from it peculiar and valuable privileges ; all com- 
bined forming a powerful party, not entirely to be ignored, even 
after the p^romised withdrawal of the French troops. But we 
believe that the postponement of this withdrawal to so late a 
date, is to give all these interests time to consolidate, with the 
hope also, that, in eighteen months, the additional interests that 
may be brought to work in harmony with the others, may en- 
able the imperial government to make head against all oppo- 
nents. In view of this, we question the wisdom of our govern- 
ment in allowing the longer continuance of this bastard usurp- 
ation of the rights of a people, and the enduring of this stand- 
ing insult to the whole Western continent. 

The church party are also in the field with new- political com- 
binations, with the hope that, by some extraordinary turn of 
fortune, they may regain some of their lost power, and re-estab- 
lish a reactionary government in place of that to which they 
betrayed their country, and which in turn betrayed them. 
Again, as of old, their exponent is Santa Anna ; and this retro- 
gressive champion issues a frommciamiento^ crying " Down 
with the empire ! " — which Tie helped establish — and " Long live 
the republic 1 " — which he helped overthroio. The clergy, 
with the hope of driving from the soil the power which 
has broken faith with them, are now making one grand 
rally to free themselves from its weight ; therefore they 
cry Union of all parties and all political creeds, but 
they want Union and the Leadership ; this, ^we believe, 



* See New York Herald, June 14, 1866. 



81 

would be ruin to the liberal cause, and we see in it, therefore, 
the reasons for the distrust with which all the liberals look at 
the attempted foisting of Santa Anna upon the republican plat- 
form. The clergy, finding that they cannot establish a church 
party, and that intervention and monarchy fail to dro^^^l the 
the republic in their waves, very naturally seek for a footing 
under the repu?jlican standard, and demand a position which it 
would be fatal for the liberals to grant them. 

Gro'^^n^ out of French invasion and the consequent dis- 
tracted condition of the country, there are other combinations 
in the field derogatory to the true interests of Mexican civiliza- 
tion and progress. Among these has been the inability of the 
Mexican people to hold a constitutional election for President 
before the expiration of the late presidential term. The result 
has been that, by virtae of the constitution. General Ortega, as 
" President of the Supreme Court of Justice," considered him- 
self entitled, on the 1st December, 1865, to the presidential 
chaii'. On that date, however, he was absent from the country, 
and, therefore, could not assume the duties of the office. He had 
claimed that he was entitled to the seat in 1864; but the 
decision of the cabinet was against him, and to this he appar- 
ently acquiesced like a true patriot. 

It is easy to sit quietly in one's study and render a decision 
of what is the right in time of peace ; but in time of great 
public peril, when, by civil commotion, by foreign invasion, and 
by a struggle that saps the life-blood of a nation, the whole 
conditions of the problem become changed, a point at least 
should be yielded to that stera military law which is the growth 
of the moment, and which, unwritten, is still to be considered 
when the destinies of a people perhaps hang upon the firmness 
of the hand that presses the helm. A true patriot never leaves 
his post at that moment, no matter what personal considera- 
tions may influence him.. 

It is not within our province to decide the question of 
Ortega's right to the presidency, but we believe that a strict 
rendering of military law would cause his arrest for desertion 
and trial by court martial were he to return to Mexico ; for, 
nearly twelve months previous to the time at which the cabinet 
of Juarez decided that the presidential term should be extended, 
General Ortega applied for, and received from his government, 
a " leave of transit " from Chihuahua through the Lnited States 
to another part of Mexico, for the purpose of organizing 
some military expedition against the enemy. Ever since this 
leave was granted Ortega has been in the United States. 
Instead of standing beside the other heroes of Mexico who have 

6 



82 

so bravely fought in the cause of freedom, he has apparently de- 
serted the cause of his country. General Ortega is a brave man, 
with many good qualities of head and heart ; but his place was 
by the side of Juarez, battling for the overthrow of the empire, 
that, in case of the death of the latter, he might take up the 
standard and continue the contest. Should Juarez die, there is 
no one to fill the chair, according to the letter of the constitu- 
tion, unless, by virtue of the powers vested in Trim by the 
N"ational Congress, he has appointed some one. The decrees of 
Congress, for this and every purpose, have been more than 
ample, and show what confidence has been centered in the 
present incumbent of the presidential chair. On December 11, 
1861, Congress granted extraordinary powers to the President, 
only Imiiting him to the preservation of the national territory 
and the indej^endence of the country intact, and the support of 
the constitution. On December 13, 1861, a supplementary 
article was added, even granting power " to conclude treaties 
and conventions, and place them in the course of execution." 
Again, May 3, 1862, and October 2Y, 1862, and still again May 
27, 1863, Congress reconfirmed these extraordinary powers to 
the President, who, on the 8th Nov., 1865, by their virtue, 
issued a decree extending his term of ofiice, and also that of the 
" President of the Supreme Com-t of Justice," until " the condi- 
tion of the war may permit an election to be constitutionally 
held." . 

Besides the reasons given in this decree for the extension, 
there were other and powerful ones, born of the situation 
and potent in their solution of the contest against the 
invaders of the soil. It was a case of imperious necessity that 
Juarez should continue to govern ; for, it was his government 
that the French proclaimed war against, and not against the 
Mexican people who had with an overwhelming majority 
placed him in the presidential chair. The wish of every true 
Mexican was, therefore, that the man of their choice should 
remain at the head of their government, in the face of all for- 
eign opposition ; providing that, in addition to this wish, there 
were good and sufficient constitutional reasons forhis so doing. 
In this view then, Juarez represents the will of Mexico in 
opposition to the will of Prance. It was, moreover, necessary 
to have a sterling man in the position, that required a persistent, 
unwavering purpose, with unfaltering nerve, to wage a contest 
of years against the bastard empire of Maximilian ! Fortunate 
has it been for Mexico that she found the man whose sterling 
integrity was proof against all the dazzling allm-ements of the 
empire ; who could not be bought, nor yet deceived ; whose 



83 

sole purpose of life appeal's to be to free his countiy from her 
invaders, and restore the cause of order and civilization which 
foreign intervention so rudely hurled aside, at the moment it 
was established, after the terrific battle of half a century. 

The attempt of France to overthrow the government of the 
people has, thus far, been unsuccessful, and it should be the 
effort to-day of every real Mexican patriot to prevent the ma- 
chinations of the French Emperor from establishing any govern- 
ment in place of the present liberal one whereby, upon the 
exodus of Maximilian, he may be able to attach to the Mexican 
national debt the long and unfortunate bill he has contracted 
in his foolish attempt to establish an empire in the heart of the 
Western Kepublican World ! 

Mexico is to-day fighting the great battle of republicanism 
against imperialism. The direct insult which France offered 
to the Mexican people, in the attempt to establish a government 
not of their choice, is also an indirect insult to every republic 
on this continent, and most of all to the United States. The 
conquest of Mexico was to be a foothold for the propagandism 
of monarchical ideas in the New World. One after the other 
the republics were to fall until human liberty and republi- 
canism became a transient bubble of the past, that showed its 
bright colors in the sunshine, but burst at the first blast ; but 
the wave of imperialism has broken against a rock ; lashed into 
foam, it hurls itself in vain against an unaided and poverty- 
stricken republic which fifty years of civil strife have torn and 
wounded to the heart. Shame ! shame ! that we, as a people, 
look on quietly and see Mexico tight the battle of both North 
and South America. Shame ! to the Great Republic that we 
bind our sympathies in the shroud of selfishness and see im- 
perial Europe scourge, without cause, the young republics to 
the south of us, who, just struggling into the light of civiliza- 
tion, are baified and thrown back into the past because the 
Colossus of the North lies dead to their appeals against a com- 
mon enemy. 

With the overthrow of Maximilian, there will naturally 
arise new complications, born of the evils which have dropped 
from the folds of the French flag. The whole political atmos- 
phere, driven into cloud and whirlwind by the invasion, will 
not settle into calm under the first ray of sunshine. 

Our own civil war, and its present phase, should teach us to 
have patience with a people whose political fortunes have been 
stirred to more tragic action by five decades of contest and the 
solution of a dozen curses in its one great crucible of revolu- 
tion. Grant them a few years to restore their country ! — first, 



84 



LIBRRRY OF CONGRESS 



015 834 919 



to the condition in which the allies found it in 1861, when 
they cuTsedit with their presence ; then the reorganization of 
the whole civil and political forces overtprned by the invasion ; 
and, finally, the restoration of the organic law of the land, the 
constitution of 1857, with all the civilizing reforms that 
attended it. 



THE END. 



